Demographics
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2015 AICPA Ag Conference
As chairman of the 2015 AICPA Ag Conference, I would like to personally invite all of our readers to this event. It will be held on Monday July 13, 2015 to Wednesday, July 15, 2015 in Indianapolis, Indiana. On Monday, Chris Hesse and myself will do an all-day optional workshop on farm taxation . This session will […]
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Dairy Margin Protection Program Analysis
The USDA has a Dairy Margin Protection Program (MPP) website that provides updated information. This information includes historical data along with a monthly update on monthly margin (All-Milk Price less calculated feed costs). As expected, the margin for 2014 was substantially in excess of the highest margin ($8) that could be accessed by dairy producers. […]
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Farm Loan Growth is Driven by Leaner Profits
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City just released their latest Agricultural Finance Databook and as expected lower farm profits are leading to increased demand for operating loans. However, some of this increase is also due to the rapid increase in livestock prices during 2014 which results in greater operating loans just to service the […]
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Ethanol Industry Approaches 1 Million Barrels a Day Production
The Barrel is a blog done by Platts (a division of McGraw Hill) and their recent post indicated that Ethanol production is approaching 1 million barrels a day. This equates to about 42 million gallons a day. Ethanol margins have nearly doubled from 2013 and are approaching $1 per gallon. However, with the continued decrease […]
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Farm Exports Hit Record $152.5 Billion for FYE September 30, 2014
The USDA announced earlier this month that total US farm exports for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2014 hit a new record of $152.50 billion. This is up from the previous record set the year before of $141 billion (almost a 10% increase). It was the first time that exports for any month exceeded […]
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Where’s the Beef
Yesterday, I posted on work pork production. Today I will recap world beef production (again from the 2014 Agricultural Symposium). Here are some of the key points: Total beef production has held steady between 56 and 59 million metric tons over the last 10 years (about half of total pork production). US produces about 11 […]
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What About Pork?
Every once in a while, I like to post of interesting facts about food production around the world. I came across the 2014 Kansas City Federal Reserve Agricultural Symposium that was held this summer and found a presentation by Derrell Peel, a professor at Oklahoma State University. Here is a recap of some interesting facts […]
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IRS Releases 2012 Income Data
The IRS recently posted to their website the income statistics for 2012. These statistics break down income into their major components such as wages, interest, business income, etc. Farmers who file Schedule F are also listed. Farmers who file as a partnership or S corporation along with related wages would be lumped in with those […]
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Mid West Crop Tour – Final Conclusions
I was hoping to write this post last night, but dinner, presentations and then chatting with all of the scouts meant I did not get back to my hotel room until almost Midnight. My key theme for this crop tour is “Can the Great Eastern Crop Lift Up the Not-So Great Western Crop”? Our tour […]
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Mid West Crop Tour – Wednesday
What a difference a day makes. On Tuesday, we saw really good corn in Indiana and slightly better than average corn in Eastern Illinois. I woke up this morning expecting to see excellent corn in the rest of Illinois and pretty good corn in Iowa. We left Bloomington and headed toward Peoria to get started […]