August, 2010
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Hedge is Good – Speculation is Bad
Many more farmers are using futures contracts to hedge their crops these days than 20 or 30 years ago. Hedging income and losses are treated as ordinary income or loss as part of the farming operation. What many farmers do not know is that if they are using futures to speculate in other commodities or […]
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What will Yields Look Like in 50 Years
I have read several articles recently regarding the trend in yields for corn and beans over the last 20-30 years. During the 1980’s and early 1990’s, the average increase in corn yields was about 1.5%. During the last 15 years or so, the yield increase has been closer to 2%. How will corn yields look […]
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You Do Not Need to Own Any Land to Farm
Moe Russell, of Russell Consulting Group wrote a very good article in the Corn and Soybeans Digest clear back in 2007 on the fact that you do not need to own land to be a farmer. I personally think in today’s environment, most farmers who already own a bunch of land with no debt are […]
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Bring Home the Bacon
After at least two years of massive losses, hog farmers are now starting to enjoy much higher prices for their products. Most of the studies I have reviewed indicated that most farmers that raised hogs probably lost anywhere from $20 to $60 per hog produced in 2008 and 2009. Based on the higher current prices, […]
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Wheat Futures are Up – Cash Market is Barely Up
It appears as usual that there is a buying frenzy in the wheat futures market that has not totally transferred over to the cash market. Since early June, the Wheat Futures market has gone up by about 80% whereas the cash market has gone up by much less leading to a large widening in the […]
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How High Will the Potash Corp. Price Go
Reuters is reporting that Potash Corp. has formally put pressure on BHP to raise the price for its takeover of Potash Corp. or have the company get sold to some other company. BHP originally bid $130 per share for the company or $39 billion in total. The price has already jumped to over $150 per […]
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Crop Tour Recap
Here are my comments regarding the crop tour: The corn crop looked good, however, most of Iowa had issues with tip-back where the water on the ground deprived the ear of the nutrients to get the last full inch of the ear filled. This is the main reason why the Iowa crop looks like it will […]
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The Crop Tour – Day 4
Today, we have a very long drive ahead of us as we traveled from Spenser, Iowa, headed north into Minnesota. We then headed west almost to the South Dakota border. We then turned north and started to do our counts in those four counties along the border. At Canby, we then turned south and east […]
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The Crop Tour – Day 3
Today was a free form day for us. We had Brian from Pro Farmer with us and he was doing multiple radio interviews through out the day so we had to stop at various times and let him make his calls in the best cell phone area that we could find. I have A T […]
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The Crop Tour – Day 2
We spent the night in Grand Island, Nebraska last night. It had rained a little bit last night during the update, but I did not expect to wake up to constant rain and to find out that we had gotten 2.44 inches of rain overnight. We left the hotel at about 6:45 and headed due […]