Demographics
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File & Suspend Will Be No More
The budget bill that was finalized this week eliminates a strategy for social security recipients called “File and Suspend”. Under this strategy, the high income earner could file for benefits, allow his lower earning spouse to get benefits before full retirement age and then “suspend” their benefits until age 70 to lock in the additional […]
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Rural Main Street Index Falls Into Negative Numbers
Creighton University publishes a monthly rural main street index designed to give a reading on the overall health of the farm/rural economy. In their most recent release from September, after several years in positive territory (over 50 on a 1-100 index), the index finally fell into a negative reading at 49. Now, this is only […]
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Additional Comments About KC Fed Ag Symposium
Back in July, the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank held an Ag Symposium (which they have done annually since 2010). The first part of the symposium was a presentation by Dr. Michael Boehlje of Purdue on “The Ag Outlook: An Economic Downturn“. Here are some my observations from that presentation: Real US Corn revenue per […]
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First Day of the Midwest Crop Tour
Today was the first day of the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour. This is my sixth straight trip on the tour and after spending the last three years on the Eastern Leg, I decided to spend this year on the Western Leg. My expectations for today was to see good crops in South Dakota and […]
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The ProFarmer Midwest Crop Tour
This will be my sixth year in a row of doing the Pro Farmer Midwest Crop tour. My first two years I did the western leg, the last three were on the eastern leg and this year I go back and tour the western leg. Here is a map from Pro Farmer showing the locations […]
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One Last Combine Ride
Most of the wheat harvest is done for this year near Walla Walla, however; I was able to get one last ride in today on one of my client’s Case IH 8010’s (have to plug those red machines all I can). They were finishing up a field just north and a little west of Dayton, […]
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How Much Greater Will 2014/15 Farm Program Payments Be Than CBO Estimate
Gary Schnitkey and Carl Zulauf from the University of Illinois just released a new estimate of total estimated ARC/PLC payments for the 2014 crop year (to be paid after September 30, 2015). Their report estimates total farm program payments of about $5.7 billion for this year. In their summary and commentary section, they indicate it is […]
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Day 1 of the NSAC Annual Meeting
I am attending the annual National Society of Accountants (NSAC) annual meeting in Denver. For those of you who work with cooperatives who are not members of the NSAC, I would strongly encourage you to become a member. There are numerous education opportunities, resources, and great networking opportunities available. Also, if anyone of you reading […]
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Organic, Conventional or GMO
The Federal Reserve of Kansas City just had their annual Ag Symposium about two weeks ago. One of the presentations was by Jill McCluskey, a professor at Washington State University on the demographic trends and consumer preferences regarding food. The highlights of her presentation were as follows: Processed and fast food is the old trend – Farmers’ […]
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Updated PLC Yields Much Higher Than Old Yields
One of the options available to landowners under the 2014 Farm Bill was to update their yield to 90% of the average yield from 2008 to 2012. A producer could retain the old CCP yield which in many cases had not been updated since the 1980s or update to the new yield. Producers who elected […]