America’s farmers can’t seem to catch a break. Years of thin margins and rising costs have already stretched them to the limit. And now, war with Iran is making things even harder. The conflict is driving up global energy and fertilizer prices, pushing producers into tough decisions about what to plant and at what price to sell. At the same time, farmers are still dealing with the impact of tariffs, rising land costs, and stiff competition from agricultural powerhouses like Brazil. On this episode, we’re joined again by Jeff Kazin and Mike Rohlfsen, founders of Agris Academy, which advises farmers on managing risk. They walk us through how global turmoil reaches all the way into the US heartland and into the American food supply.

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Mostly, the world has been watching the price of oil skyrocket amid the war in Iran and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But there's more than just oil that comes out of the region. Qatar is home to the world's largest natural gas field, and for now, it's been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world. Not only has Gulf gas supply been cut off, there's also damage to the core infrastructure, which will take time to repair. Meanwhile, the US is rapidly becoming a natural gas export powerhouse, with volumes having surged since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. So, all in all, the world's natural gas map is rapidly being redrawn. On this episode, we turn to the one and only Bob Brackett, managing director and senior research analyst at Bernstein & Co. He explains the impact of the war on global prices, the prospect for further US exports, how the world will adjust to the loss of Gulf supply, as well as the other commodities that are getting squeezed right now.

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The war in Iran has been fought almost entirely in the skies, with both offensive missiles, as well as anti-missile defense systems. But the math is brutal. The war in Ukraine has already put a dent in American stockpiles, and now it is proving costly to protect American bases and their allies in the region against Iranian drones. On this episode, we speak with Tom Karako, a senior fellow and director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a top defense think tank in Washington DC. We discuss the size and scale of the American arsenal, the supply chain constraints for building more missiles, and the Pentagon's general attempts to ramp up production.

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