Demographics
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Mid West Crop Tour
Pro Farmer conducts a Mid West Crop Tour each year. There are two legs to the tour. The Eastern Leg starts in Columbus, Ohio this Sunday night and on Monday, about 11 routes are conducted from Columbus to Fishers, Indiana. These routes will go over the exact same roads as in previous years, however, the […]
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Top 100 Ag Banks
The American Bankers Association (ABA) posts a quarterly report of the 100 largest Ag Banks (Non-Farm Credit). In the first quarter report for this year, the #1 bank for Ag loans was Wells Fargo with $7.229 billion of farmland ($2.231 billion and $4.998 billion of other ag loans). #2 was Rabobank with $3.957 billion followed […]
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Rural Mainstreet Index Continues to Weaken
Creighton University prepares a Rural Mainstreet Index that measures the economic outlook for the agricultural/rural sector of the economy. An index reading of 50 indicates growth neutral. The index for June 2013 was at 60.5 and for June of this year, it has dropped to 53.6, almost growth neutral. The index is composed of a […]
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Trends in Irrigated Ground
I have seen numerous farmers with farm ground in normally non-irrigated areas of the corn belt put in irrigation over the last couple of years. Based on this, I thought I would recap the trends shown in irrigated ground from the 2012 AG census In 1997, there were 15 states that had more than a […]
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Corn Acres Trends
In reviewing the 2012 AG census data for corn acres, it is very interesting some of the trends that jump out at us. In 1997, the US grew corn on about 71 million acres. By 2002 the acres had dropped to 68 million acres, but beginning thereafter with ethanol, acres jumped to 86 million in […]
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Where are the Large Farms?
As we have previously mentioned, the 2012 US AG Census was just released and there are many interesting facts contained in the census. One area that I will highlight today is the trends regarding large farms. These farms contain more than 2,000 acres. As can be expected Texas has the most large farms with 10,810. […]
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Corn Belt and Cash Rents Cropland Values Level Off
The Chicago Federal Reserve releases a quarterly update on cropland values and cash rents for their district which comprises the three main “I” states in the corn belt (Iowa, Illinois and Indiana) and although good Iowa farm land was up 1% for the quarter, good farmland in Illinois and Indiana dropped 4% in the latest […]
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Kansas Land Values-Analysis of Four Year Trends
Kansas State University has a great resource for farmers and others interested in farming, not just in that state. On Friday, Dr. Mykel Taylor presented a webinar on the trends in Kansas Farm Values over the last four years. The Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service (KAS) reports annual farmland prices, but only on a statewide basis. As most […]
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State Estate Tax – 2014 Update
Many states have either completely repealed their state estate tax or they have an estate tax that is tied to the old federal state estate tax credit. Since the federal law changed many years back to repeal the state tax credit, all of those states that relied upon receiving the state tax credit amount really […]
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The Long-Term Trend in Hog Numbers
We recently reviewed the trend in cattle numbers based on the 2012 census. Those numbers show a decrease in cattle numbers and we had assumed that hog numbers would actually show a small increase in numbers due to the recent profitability numbers for hogs. However, since the last census was in 2007 which was before […]