November, 2010
-
How Will You Transfer the Farm?!
I ran across another thought provoking article in Cornhusker Economics. In the article, they performed an analysis of farmers in Nebraska based upon their ages. In 1982, 13,436 farmers in Nebraska were under age 35. In the most recent census in 2007, this number had dropped to 3,353 or a 75 percent decrease. The number […]
-
Happy Thanksgiving!
I will be traveling on the business the next two days, so I wanted to make sure to wish Happy Thanksgiving to all of our readers. This holiday was my favorite as a child growing up since we went to my grandparents for Thanksgiving and some years we would have over 45 relatives there. Again, […]
-
Farmland Turnover drops by 50%
One of the recent issues of Cornhusker Economics put out by the University of Nebraska Department of Agricultural Economics showed how the farmland turnover for the current year is about half of the long-term trend. The market for farmland has historically been a “thin” market in that very little is marketed and changes in ownership […]
-
Betterment – Why Does That Cost Me Money?
We had a reader ask the following questions: “We had a combine fire this fall, and my question is concerning “betterment” deducted from the claim. The combine was a 2010 model, with only 400 hours on it. The damage exceeded $41,000, and the insurance company deducted $4,100 (10%) for “betterment”. I assume that I can deduct […]
-
December 31, 2010 – Date to Make Taxable Gifts
With the expected large increase in gift and estate tax rates for 2011, December 31, 2010 is the key date to make any large taxable gifts. Currently, the maximum gift tax rate is 35% and it will rise on January 1, 2011 to 55%. There is no estate tax for 2010, but in 2011, the […]
-
What’s Your ACRE Payment?
I got a call from one of my clients yesterday saying that he got a surprise in the bank account. His ACRE payment had shown up and it was a substantial amount. We wrote many posts on this about a year ago before the final sign up for the 2009 crop indicating that ACRE might […]
-
How Might a Rise In Interest Rates Affect Farmland Prices?
With a lot of recent discussion and articles on whether farmland prices are entering a “bubble” phase, I thought some analysis to see how a potential rise in interest rates might effect farmland prices would look like. Farmland prices (as are most financial assets) is normally a function of the income generated by the farmland […]
-
Cane, Beet, Corn – What is Sugar?
I have seen several articles lately on the battle between high fructose corn syrup and regular sugar from sugar cane or sugar beets. There is a perception by the public that cane and beet sugar is better for you than sugar from corn. Most nutritionists believe that the all of these sugars are equal from […]
-
Sugar Drops 20% in Two Days
Prices for sugar hit a 30-year high on Thursday at 33.39 cents per pound, however, by the end of the day, prices had dropped about 9.6% closing at 29.66 cents a pound and dropped another 11.6% on Friday to close the week at 26.21 cents per pound. The drop in prices was sparked by the […]
-
Cropland Prices Rise More Than 6%
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City (representing Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and the Mountain States) just reported that non-irrigated farmland prices for the year-over-year ended September 30, 2010 rose more than 6%. Irrigated cropland was up an even more robust 9.6%. After dipping slightly in the third quarter of 2009, prices have risen each […]