Farm Trends
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Farm Profit Trends 1998 to 2008
The Iowa Farm Business Association, comprised of various farm management companies, recently issued a nice 4 page newsletter that had a lot of good information on farm profit trends. All of this information relates to farms in Iowa but the trends show hold true for most states that grow corn and s0ybeans. The newsletter recapped […]
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Wind Energy Report Card
We have several farm clients in Washington and Oregon that either are getting royalty checks from wind turbines or will be getting these checks in the near future. In many cases, the income from wind turbines is substantially higher than the income from traditional farming. In many cases, one turbine can generate in excess of […]
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High Cost – High Return : Low Cost – Negative Return
During the late 1990’s and early 2000’s I was a part owner of a plastic packaging company. We had always used a costing mechanism that relied upon standard costs and return for various products. This usually resulted in accurate information except when the cost of the product got too high. In many cases, we would […]
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Farmland Values Drop for the Quarter
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago reported that for their district (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin) farm land values dropped 6% from the previous quarter (the largest drop for a quarter since 1985). Also, the year-over-year increase in farmland values was up only 2% for the first quarter of 2009. The drop ranged from […]
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World SuperBike Races
(Warning – this post does not have anything on farming) My wife and I attended the World SuperBike races in Tooele, Utah this weekend. I currently ride a BMW K 1200 S similar to the photo posted here. I grew up riding small dirt bikes and had not been on a sports bike for about […]