Demographics
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“Generic” Base Acres
If you are a cotton farmer, what you plant may increase your ARC-CO payments. For all other farmers, it does not matter.
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US Farm Economy Continues to Sputter
The Kansas City Federal Reserve just released their latest Ag Economy update and it continues to get bleaker.
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Current Year Apple Projections and Data in Thus Far
Washington Farmers are estimating the current apple harvest to produce 133 million boxes of apples which is up 15% from last year. Washington is the number one apple producer with New York being far behind in second place.
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Ongoing Need for Farm Financing is Pressuring Farmers
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City released their second quarter Agricultural Finance Databook and as expected, the need for operating loans for farmers over a continued period of time is weighing on farmers. Here is my analysis regarding the charts and information provided in the databook. Chart 1 shows the percentage change in Number […]
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Farm Debt is Growing
The Kansas City Fed just released a report indicating that farm debt is accumulating at a faster pace. Farmers with carryover debt increased from 18% of loans to 29% of loans in the first quarter of 2016. Also, 18% of total loans made in the first quarter involved restructuring existing debt to meet short-term liquidity […]
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Farmland Values Continue to Drop
The Chicago Federal Reserve just released their First Quarter 2016 Ag Letter showing that farmland values continue to trend lower. The district covers most of the I states in the corn belt and show the following year-over-year changes in farmland values: Illinois – Minus 5% Indiana – Minus 2% Iowa – Minus 5% Michigan – […]
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Final FSA Yields More Likely to be Under NASS Yields?
There is a lot of chatter regarding the lack of ARC-CO payments for the 2014 crop year due to yields coming in higher than what farmers might have expected for their county. When we were doing Farm Bill analysis about two years ago, we had taken a look at how final FSA yields compared to […]
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Continued Headwinds for Ag
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City provides several publications throughout the year on trends in the farming sector for their region (Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico). In an article titled “Supply and Demand Fundamentals Weighing on Ag Economy”, it does a good job of outlining the headwinds that Ag still […]
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Iowa Land Values Drop 3.9% from 2014
Iowa State University has performed a survey of Iowa land values since 1941. Nominal land values peaked in 2013 and for 2015, the values decreased by $310 to an average $7,633 per acre or drop of 3.9%. Iowa is split into 9 zones, 3 along the top part of the state, 3 in the middle […]
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Social Security Potpourri
In our last post, we had indicated that the option to “File and Suspend” for social security benefits is coming to an end. This post will expand on that a bit. Under the “File and Suspend” method, married couples could have the higher income spouse elect to file for benefits (currently age 66), but then suspend the […]