Demographics
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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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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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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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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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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 […]
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Minnesota Farmers See 63% Reduction in Net Income for 2009
Of the 2,401 Minnesota farms included in the “FINBIN” survey for 2009, the median farm saw a 63% decrease in net income from $91,242 to $33,417. Each year, the Center for Farm Financial Management performs a survey of Minnesota farmers. Their response for 2009 represented about 3% of overall farms and about 10% of the […]
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Challenges Facing CRP
With the 2008 farm act, substantial changes were made to the USDA Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The major change was reducing the maximum enrollment acreage from about 37 million acres to 32 million acres which is about a 14% reduction in maximum acres. Also, during this period, a substantial increase in commodity prices took place […]