Farm Industry Trends
-
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 […]
-
What is Your 20 Year Plan?
I was skimming the Corn and Soybean Digest website the other day and came across this very good article on planning ahead for the next 20 years on your farm operation. It is very important for farmers to set goals and plans. I believe that these goals should be in writing and quantifiable. Also, on […]
-
Watch Out For Morocco’s Phosphate Monopoly
In the November 14, 2010 issue of Bloomberg Business Week, one of their key articles was on Morocco’s potential monopoly in phosphate. As most farmers remember, phosphate prices in the 2007-2008 time period rose, in some cases, by tenfold or more. For many decades, phosphate sold for about $40 per ton. However, currently, phosphate trades near […]
-
How to Handle Allocation of Purchase Price
One of our readers wrote in the following question: “Our son is in the process of taking over our hog operation. They would like to buy all the buildings, equipment, and house on a contract. Do we need an appraisal for this transaction? Some of the buildings and equipment are 16 years old and fully […]
-
How’s Your Sugar High?
The Wall Street Journal reported today that the sugar prices are nearing a 30 year high. The benchmark March sugar contract settled at 30.15 per pound yesterday. That was the highest close since January 14, 1981. There was a rally earlier in the year that got close to the same price, however, that rally was […]
-
Is China Running Out of Farmland
Colvin and Company provides a very good blog related to farm land investments called Farmland Forecast. In one of their more recent blogs, they did a great analysis of whether China is running out of good arable farmland. At the beginning of 2000, China had about 128 million hectares of good arable land. As of […]