August, 2010
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First Day on Crop Tour – Part 2
Just got back from the meeting with the other participants and local growers. Looks like there were about 200 people or more in attendance. Our counts versus the other routes for the day seemed very similar. The one thing that stood out to me was the drilled soybeans in South Dakota had some wildly high […]
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First Day on the Crop Tour
I got into the Kansas City airport yesterday about an hour late due to mechanical issues. My partner in the farm picked me up and we then traveled about 350 miles to Sioux Falls and met up with the Pro Farmer Crop Tour participants. There were about 30 people at the meeting and we had […]
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Farms Over $1 Million in Revenue Account for Almost Half of Farm Sales
According to the USDA (using 2007 information) farmers who grow and raise more than $1 million in annual farm sales account for 47% of total farm production. The survey done by the USDA compared 2007 to 1991 and there are several interesting facts in the survey: Very small farms have increased by over 315,000 during […]
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Pre Crop-Tour Comments
I am flying out of Seattle early Sunday morning and meeting up with my farm partner at the Kansas City airport. We are then driving up to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to meet up with all of the Crop Tour participants that are doing the western leg of the tour. The plan is to spend […]
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Watch for Farm Partnership Tax Penalties
In the recent Holdner Tax Court case, the IRS was able to make an argument that the farming operations carried on by father and son were in fact a partnership and not two separate farming operations that should be reported on their respective schedule F. In the case, the father and son had operated the […]
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Should Wheat Farmers Lock in 2011 Prices
As I write this post September 2011 wheat futures are trading at slightly more than $7 per bushel. If I had asked any wheat farmer three months ago would they like to lock in $7 wheat for next year’s crop, I am fairly certain that 100% of them would have said yes. These farmers now […]
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US Farm Managers are on a Roll
I was skimming through the Reuters.com website the other day and came across an article on how US Farm Managers are enjoying the benefits of the Baby Boom Generation of farm land transfer and the continued high farm land prices. Most of these larger national farm managers went through crisis in the early to mid […]
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Rural Index Turns Negative Again
The Rural Mainstreet Index maintained by Creighton University dipped below growth neutral in the latest July posting. This marks the first time since April that the index dipped below the neutral 50 level by sinking to 49.3 from 52.6 in June and 54.3 in May. Like other economic indicators, this index appears to be signalling […]