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Quarterly economic condition report for U.S. agriculture
The Farm Credit Administration received its quarterly report on economic conditions affecting agriculture and an update on the overall performance of the Farm Credit System. Despite a turbulent year with tariffs and trade, the U.S. economy is expected to end 2025 on a relatively stable footing. In agriculture, producers face a mixed outlook. Bumper crops have created marketing challenges amid a fluid trade environment and a shortage of storage. Grain and soybean producers continue to...
Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul seeing catastrophic flooding
Last year, when I had the opportunity to go to Brazil, I spent the first days in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. It’s in the Southern part of Brazil, still many hours from the ports along the ocean. While there, I saw some of the lushest regions of agriculture...
Bullish Cattle on Feed report creates market optimism
Just before the Memorial Day Weekend, the livestock markets got some homework in the form of the latest Cattle on Feed report. There was plenty of time for the markets to digest the neutral numbers, and today both live and feeder cattle climbed higher. Even though the...
Biobased products key to the future of agriculture
Biobased products, including fuels, lubricants, construction materials, and more are the future, and were the subject of several House farm bill amendments last week. Iowa’s Zach Nunn offered and withdrew his biobased products amendment after Chair Glenn Thompson...
Determining the profitability of cover crops on livestock operations
A recent report by the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service studied whether incorporating cover crops into livestock systems is more profitable than livestock operations that do not use cover crops. Maria Bowman, research ag economist with...
Looking at the volatility in cattle
Last week the U.S. Meat Export Federation held their annual meeting in Kansas City, MO. It came when livestock markets were in a state of heavy fluctuations. The Cattle market is seeing a little more of the volatility than the hogs are. There have been some erratic...
Livestock groups welcome farm bill markup
Livestock groups welcomed the House Agriculture Committee's action to markup the Farm Bill. The National Pork Producers Council says the bill supports all pork producer's farm bill requests, including a federal fix to the host of Prop. 12 issues plaguing producers and...
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Iowans testify before Senate committee on disaster relief programs
Today, the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, which is chaired by U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), hosted a hearing to discuss the challenges facing rural small businesses and the federal support they have received, specifically through the U.S....
Research reaffirms safety of properly prepared pork
USDA released research confirming a negligible risk of trichinella from their study of 3.2 million samples taken from Pork Quality Assurance® Plus (PQA Plus) farms. Heather Fowler, director of producer and public safety for the National Pork Board, said this research...
Grassley speaks on possible Stabenow farm aid add to CR
There are rumblings on Capitol Hill that Senate Ag Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow is considering attaching temporary relief for farmers, in place of a new farm bill, to a must-pass stop-gap spending bill. Farm broadcasters asked United States Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)...
Trade policy shifts impact on U.S. agriculture
Agricultural economists from North Dakota State University have examined the proposed trade policies of the two presidential candidates and one proposal being floated in Congress. The NDSU experts laid out the potential losses to soybean, corn, wheat, and beef exports...
John Deere’s See and Spray hits milestone
It was only a few years ago when we got to see John Deere’s See and Spray Technology on display at the facility near Bondurant. The technology has changed the game in how farmers can attack weeds and cuts down on the input costs for the products needed to protect our...
