Commodity Marketing
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Will This Time Be Different?
The Kansas City Federal Reserve just released a workpaper entitled “Farm Investment and Leverage Cycle: Will This Time Be Different?”. The article describes the four major farm cycles that have occurred since 1900. The first cycle begin in 1910 and ended in 1940. The First World War caused farm prices to rise dramatically which led […]
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Irrigated Cropland Values Up Sharply Due to Drought
The Kansas City Federal Reserve issued their latest Agricultural Credit Conditions report for the 4th quarter of 2012. Due to the widespread drought in their area, irrigated cropland values saw a 13 percent jump in the 4th quarter alone and up 30% for the year. Cash rental rates for irrigated cropland also surged more than […]
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Another Bill to Reduce Farm Payments is Introduced!
Four Senators (two Democrats and two Republicans) this week introduced a bill “The Farm Program Integrity Act of 2013” to place a cap on farm payments that an individual farmer can receive and try to close “certain perceived” loopholes in the farm payment program. This bill closely follows language that was included in the original […]
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What Will be The February Insurance Price
February sets the price level for crop insurance on Corn, Beans and some of the other major crops. Last year’s spring price was $5.68 for corn and $12.55 for beans. We have had 4 trading days for this month out of 20 total and so far the average corn price is $5.89 and the average […]
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Even Entertainment Weekly Thinks Farmers are Cool
Dodge ran a 2 minute commercial during the Super Bowl utilizing the Paul Harvey “On the 8th Day God created Farmers”. I thought it was one of the best commercials during the game and Entertainment Weekly thought the same thing. It was very well done and we just wanted to say how proud we are […]
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It May Pay to Fill Out Your Ag Census Online
Every five years the Department of Agriculture sends out a very detailed census form for farmers to prepare and send back. We have already discussed this form with several farmers and as usual it can be very hard to follow the paper form. We have found preparing the form online can save some time and […]
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KC Fed Reports Drought-Reduced Income Boost Farm Loans
The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank just released their third quarter Agricultural Credit Conditions report. The report indicated that the drought caused lower farm income for the quarter which caused farmers to increase their farm operating loans. Capital spending plummeted in the quarter. This could have been caused by the drought or perhaps the lower […]
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Some Interesting Ag Cooperative Facts
The USDA issues a bi-monthly newsletter on the Farm Cooperative industry and the latest issue had some interesting facts: Minnesota has the highest number of coops (a distinction held since 1900) with 203. Texas is second with 187 followed by North Dakota and California. These numbers are based upon the number of Coops with headquarters […]
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Farming and Rural Indexes Grow
The Rural Mainstreet Index put out by Creighton University climbed to its highest level since June of this year. The index had been flat or lower due to the drought during the previous three months, but with the report released last month, it rose to a solid 56.6 from September’s weak 48.3. It was the […]
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Updated Harvest Prices
Although the final corn and bean harvest prices have not been officially revealed, the University of Illinois in their FarmDoc daily blog, just released their final harvest estimate. Back on October 11, I posted a guess of the final corn price being $7.55 per bushel. FarmDoc indicates a final price of $7.50 (I was a […]