(Photo: Iowa Soybean Association / Joclyn Kuboushek)
Executive Insights: A season for faith and fortitude
December 1, 2025 | Kirk Leeds
As another year closes, I've been reflecting on how much can change in 12 months. For many in agriculture, 2025 was a year of hard lessons and harder roads. Trade disputes, shifting global markets, and ongoing tariffs and counter tariffs — particularly with China — kept soybean farmers guessing and margins thin or non-existent. Continued upward prices on a host of inputs caused additional damage to the bottom line. We planted with hope, harvested with grit and navigated the uncertainty with the same resilience that has always defined Iowa farmers' way of life.
But for me, the challenges this year went beyond the soybean field.
After more than six cancer-free years, my wife — my partner of 45 years — was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a devastating blow, especially after her courageous and successful battle with colorectal cancer years ago.
And yet, through every appointment, every test, every moment of fear, she has faced it with grace, strength and unwavering faith. She is, without a doubt, the strongest person I know. Watching her fight — not once, but twice — has deepened my understanding of what true courage looks like.
This season has tested us both. But it has also reminded us where our strength truly comes from. In the quiet moments — on the long drives to the clinic, enduring another chemo treatment, or during the sleepless nights — we've leaned heavily on our faith. God has never promised us a life without hardship, but He has promised to walk with us through the fire. And He has.
As we enter the Christmas season, I find myself more thankful than ever — for the gift of family, for the support of dear friends and for the steady encouragement of our extended "soy family." The calls, the prayers, the flowers and the constant flow of cards and notes — each one a reminder that we are not alone. The body of Christ takes many forms, and we've been blessed to see His love at work in powerful and personal ways.
Christmas is often seen as a season of joy, and rightfully so. But it is also a season of hope — hope born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and placed in a manger. That hope sustains us even when life feels uncertain. It reminds us that light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
To the soybean farmers of Iowa: thank you for your tireless work, your resilience and your friendship. I know this year has asked much of us all, but I also know the strength that lives in Iowans and in Iowa's farmers. Let us carry that strength — and our faith — into the new year.
May your Christmas be filled with peace, may your homes be filled with love, and may your hearts be filled with hope for the promise of a better year to come.
God bless you and yours in 2026.
Written by Kirk Leeds.
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