September 5, 2019
Late last month, Des Moines Register writer Stephen Gruber-Miller reported that, “Gov. Kim Reynolds called President Donald Trump ‘an advocate for farmers’ on [August 27th], but said he may not have understood the damage caused by the ethanol waivers his administration granted. “Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted waivers to 31 oil refineries, letting them off the hook from a requirement to blend 1.4 billion […]
September 4, 2019
After rising sharply two months in a row, the Ag Economy Barometer weakened significantly in August falling back to a reading of 124, down 29 points compared to a month earlier and just slightly below the June reading of 126. The barometer’s decline was attributable to declines in both the Index of Current Conditions, which dropped 19 points […]
September 3, 2019
The USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) indicated on Friday that, “Net farm income, a broad measure of profits, is forecast to increase $4.0 billion (4.8 percent) from 2018 to $88.0 billion in 2019. Net cash farm income is forecast to increase $7.6 billion (7.3 percent) to $112.6 billion.” “2019 Farm Sector Income Forecast,” August 30, 2019 (USDA-ERS). Before getting into details of the […]
August 28, 2019
Wall Street Journal writer Rebecca Ballhaus reported earlier this week that, “President Trump said Sunday the U.S. and Japan had reached a trade deal ‘in principle’ that would pave the way for more U.S. farm exports to Japan, while dropping the threat of increased U.S. tariffs on Japanese cars. Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump Big Trade Deal just […]
August 27, 2019
Diversified grain and livestock farms were once the model of U.S. agriculture. Farms often had crop and animal enterprises to help capture their complementary nature such as spreading the use of family labor throughout the year and recycling animal waste as nutrients to the crop enterprise. Today, farms are much more specialized in crops or […]
August 27, 2019
Recall that earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted 31 small refinery biofuel waivers for 2018. Trump administration officials then huddled early last week to consider how to contain negative blowback from farmers, who were upset over the EPA waiver decision. Late last week, Bloomberg writers Jennifer A Dlouhy and Mario Parker reported that, “Top Trump administration officials met […]
August 26, 2019
Alan Rappeport and Keith Bradsher reported on the front page of Saturday’s New York Times that, “On Friday, China said it would increase tariffs on $75 billion worth of American goods, including crude oil, automobiles and farm products like soybeans, pork and corn in response to Mr. Trump’s plan to tax an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods in September and […]
August 26, 2019
The second article we wrote on this site was an analysis of cash rental trends. That was back in 2014 when cash rents had been escalating rapidly and commodity prices had turned sharply lower. The central question was where rents were headed. We concluded that annual large declines (in excess of 10%) were relatively rare and that […]
August 23, 2019
Wall Street Journal writer Lauren Silva Laughlin reported earlier this month that, “Losses are popping up in farmers’ income statements and the pain can be seen in the share prices of the companies that depend on them. “After a challenging planting season due to wet weather, trade uncertainty has ravaged farm profitability. Flooding throughout the spring caused what JPMorgan Chase deemed a […]
August 16, 2019
On Thursday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago released a report providing an outlook on farmland values and agricultural credit conditions for the second quarter of 2019. Recall that other Federal Reserve Districts released similar reports last week. A summary of Federal Reserve District agricultural land value and credit reports from the first quarter of 2019 can be found […]
