Farm Industry Trends
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IRS Extends Time for Innocent Spoue Relief
The IRS in Notice 2011-70 has extended the time that an innocent spouse can request equitable relief from the current two year limitation to the amount time remaining under the statute of limitations for collection procedures. This is a very nice change from the IRS since they had recently won a couple of court cases […]
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John Deere to Fight For GPS
USA Today just ran an article on how John Deere is leading the fight against Lightsquared plans to put up more than 40,000 new cell towers in rural America. John Deere is worried that the spectrum that Lightsquared want to use will bump the GPS spectrum and lead to farmers having issues running their GPS […]
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A Switch in Farm Loan Levels
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City just published their National Trends in Farm Lending for the second quarter of this year. Due to the increase in input costs, operating loan levels have increased dramatically from the second quarter of 2010, up nearly 36%. The number of livestock loans dropped slightly from the year before, […]
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Wheat Market Update with a Northwest Bent
The Northwest Farm Credit Services has just posted a nice four page summary of winter and spring wheat conditions in the Pacific Northwest. This growing region includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. The region has been especially cool and wet this spring with most typical harvest delays of at least two weeks. Stripe rust appears […]
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Mexico to End Tariffs on Fruit and Other Ag Products
There is an old saying that when politics gets involved, farming can suffer. One of the prime examples of this was issue of allowing Mexican truckers to bring products into the US by truck which was allowed for several years. However, politics got involved a few years ago and the US stopped this and Mexico […]
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Extra Year for “Prairie Pothole States”
The USDA announced on Thursday, June 30, 2011 that the “Prairie Pothole States” of Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa will have one extra year to use in their prevented planting insurance coverage. Normally, the prevented planting coverage insurance requires one crop in the last three years. In these states, for many farmers, […]
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What’s Your RLU?
A farm enterprise must be able to generate enough revenue and net income to support at least one farm family which I call a “living unit”. A farm operation should calculate how much revenue the farm generates each year and divide that both by the number of full-time equivalent employees (FTE) and “living units”. To […]
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Report From The Heartland
I have spent most of the time since Saturday in Kansas City, Minneapolis and Fargo. I have seen a lot of water, both in overflowing rivers and standing in the fields. Our 200+ acres of corn north of Kansas City looks great but my farm partner will most likely lose 400 or mores acres due […]
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Ethanol Industry Will Still Be Vibrant Without Tax Credits
Todd Becker, CEO of Omaha-based ethanol producer Green Plains, says ethanol “is still a great fuel” according to an article in the Omaha World-Herald. Ethanol allows for a reduction in demand for foreign oil and is a cleaner burning fuel. At current production rates, ethanol provides more motor fuel for the United States than it […]
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China Companies Continue to Buy Up Farm Land
The Wall Street Journal had an article yesterday on how Chinese companies are continuing to invest in South America especially in buying up farm land to feed their people. Through the twelve month period ended May 31, 2011, the China’s investment in Latin America had hit $15.6 billion. During the last three years, more than […]