September, 2010
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What is a Super Juice?
I was reading this article on Reuters.com about a “Superfoods Company” Genesis Today revealing a new advertising campaign for their line of “super juices”. These juices are comprised of fruits that tend to have a perceived health benefit such as anti-oxidants, etc. Fruits involved are cranberry, pomegranate, acai and most berries. Their campaign will strive […]
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Cotton Reaches 15 Year High
As cold weather threatens the crop in China, cotton has reached a new 15 year high in prices. At the beginning of 2009, cotton prices were approximately 50 cents a pound. As of today, the price is well over 95 cents a pound and if the adverse weather in China continues, the price may go […]
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Is an Unlimited Estate Tax Exemption for Farm Estates Harmful?
I came across an article put out by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities from Washington DC. The gist of the article was that having an unlimed estate tax exemption for farm estates is unnecessary and likely harmful. The focus of the article is that this policy would create 3 harmful situations: First, according […]
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Better Investment – Farmland or Stocks?
As you can probably guess this headline that the answer is – “It Depends”. Iowa State University economist Mike Duffy ran some numbers comparing the return from owning farmland to owning stocks over certain time frames. Returns are comprised of two components: Yearly return – Cash dividends on stocks and cash rents (or the equivalent […]
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Verasun Bankruptcy – Check Your Preference Payments
Whenever a farmer sells a crop to a purchaser of their product, they always need to be aware of what happens if that purchaser goes bankrupt. Any payments that the farmer receives within 90 days of bankruptcy can be considered preference payments and the farmer may have to pay some or all of these payments […]
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New Game Plan for Potash
Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan is one of three Canadian potash producers who Canpotex. Canpotex handles all of their sales outside North America. Two other similar organizations are Belarusian Potash and International Potash. These three entities control nearly 70% of the world’s potash production. By cooperating with each other, they are able to mitigate any decreases […]
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Russia Extends Its Wheat-Export Ban
The Wall Street Journal had a fairly extensive article in today’s paper on the extension of the ban of wheat exports by Russia from December of this year until after next year’s crop. However, as most traders and farmers know, you will believe what Russia says at your own risk. What we do know from […]
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Wheat Basis Has Widened by up to 44%
Kansas State University provides a very good map of basis for most of the major crops over most of a five state region comprising all of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and parts of Texas and Colorado. These maps on a weekly basis show what the current basis is and how it compares to the three year […]