Graph Showing Investor Purchases of Iowa Farmland 1989-2010

The percentage of land purchased by what were classified as investors rose from less than 20% in the early 1990s to almost 40% in the mid 2000s. During the early part of the past decade many investors were using IRS 1031 like-kind tax exchanges in purchasing farmland.

To learn more, see Choices report by Michael Duffy.

Iowa Cropland and Pasture Rental Rates

Iowa Farmland Rental Rates 1994-2011 (USDA)
Cropland rental rates averaged $196 per acre in 2011, up $20 per acre from 2010. This was the highest value ever recorded. Cash rent for pastures averaged $46 per acre in 2011, an increase of $6 from the previous year. Rent as a percentage of land value was slightly lower than in 2010.

To see multi-year chart go to Iowa State Edwards report.

How has Climate Change Affected Iowa's Weather So Far?

These bullet points are taken from the Part I report about climate change in Iowa, by Iowa State Climate Science Program director, Eugene S. Takle:Iowa has had an 8% increase in annual average precipitation over the 136-year period from 1873-2008. Climatological patterns of precipitation for Iowa consist of an east-west gradient, with drier conditions to the west and wetter to the east, and a

An Organic Farmer Talks About Working to Supply an Oregon Farmers Market

The following video by the folks at "Cooking Up a Story" features Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm in Oregon. He has been featured on this blog before, and is a friend of this blog in the way of leaving occasional comments. This video deals with the evolution of using their Oregon land (purchased in 1998) and raising a variety of foods to sell at the Hillsdale farmers market. My understanding

Trailer: The Greenhorns (Documentary)

The Greenhorns documentary film, completed after almost 3 years in production, explores the lives of America's young farming community - its spirit, practices, and needs.

Also, see thegreenhorns.net and their blog.

Energy and Transportation Equal 13% of the 2008 Food-at-Home Dollar

Of the 2008 food-at-home dollar, processors command largest industry group share, while salaries represent largest primary factor share...


Source: USDA, Economic Research Service
KM: Always liking to focus upon the energy and transportation issues as related to food security here in the U.S., this is more from Patrick Canning. This break-down of the industry expenses for the at-home food dollar

Efficiency Gains in Beef Production Mean Fewer Cattle, More Meat

The U.S. cattle and calves inventory as of January 1, 2011 was the lowest since 1958. When evaluated on a year-over-year basis, the inventory has continued to decline through 2011, with declines fueled by drought in the Southern Plains and Southeastern United States. Beef production, however, has trended upward over the past several decades. Higher slaughter weights and efficiency gains have

Nearly Half of U.S. Nitrogen Fertilizer is Coming from Foreign Suppliers

Fertilizer is an important component of production costs for crops, especially corn. Nitrogen fertilizer production is energy-intensive as natural gas makes up 70 to 80 percent of production costs. U.S. nitrogen fertilizer supplies, while historically domestic, have been increasingly imported over the past decade. Shares of U.S. nitrogen fertilizer are now nearly equal between domestic and

Photo: 1938 USDA Hen House

source: Shorpy's
August 9, 1938. Washington, D.C. "Air conditioned hen house is latest. Biddy increases the production of eggs in an air-conditioned hen house, U.S. Department of Agriculture experts have discovered after extensive experiments. The first temperature controlled maternity ward for hens has just been put into operation at the governmental experimental farm here. The hens have voiced

The Changing Social Side of Farming in Iowa

The following bullet points were selected from the "Iowa farm and rural life poll: 2010 summary report" by J. Gordon Arbuckle, Jr., extension sociologist; Paul Lasley, extension sociologist; Peter Korsching, professor; and Chris Kast, research assistant. The average Farm Poll participants were 64 years old, which is a statistic all in itself.
Nearly 90% of farmers agreed that people do not depend

Support Staff in Charge

Readers, please note that I will be taking this next week off, but my support staff pictured above has worked very hard to provide you with some posts over the next few days and will be covering for me. Hopefully you won't even notice a thing. As, you can see, they have completely exhausted themselves.

(Please note that this blog is not unlike Paul Krugman's in the support staff department.)

California's Agricultural Strengths, in Brief

This is another presentation from the July 2011 Agricultural Symposium sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. This one focuses upon agribusiness risk in California and was presented by Curt Covington, Bank of the West. California is the single most important agricultural state in this nation, and so I'm using a few statistics from Covington's presentation to remind us of that

Ducks Use Recycled Hydroponic Garden Water

"Duckponics," if you will. Gardener Aleece Landis says that the system is not providing as many nutrients to her plants as she expected, however.Duckponics feeds plants growing in gravel beds with water from a duck pond, and returns the water cleaned and filtered for the ducks enjoyment.Made by EcoFilms Australia. h/t treehugger

The After-Effects of Agricultural Deregulation in New Zealand

The July 2011 Agricultural Symposium sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, brought hundreds of banking and business leaders, government officials and academics together to explore the risks to agricultural profits in the 21st century.

"Recognizing Risk in Global Agriculture" included a Bank of New Zealand presentation titled, "NZ Agriculture - Deregulation 26 years on" by Richard

How Higher Energy Prices Will Affect U.S. Agricultural Production

KM: Note that this post is based upon the newly released USDA report, "Impacts of Higher Energy Prices on Agriculture and Rural Economies" by Ronald Sands and Paul Westcott. It focuses upon a subject which interests me greatly, that of how agriculture can adapt to higher energy prices (or less availability).

There is a great amount of give and take within the Ag/food system as we adjust and

Agriculture News August 22, 2011

Great article, in my opinion: Problems Will Be Global -- And Solutions Will Be, Too (Foreign Policy) "As for individual countries, the states that will be the strongest in 2025 will be those that have figured out how to do more with less."
Investors seeing gold in farmland, infrastructure (Reuters)The New Green Revolution: How Twenty-First-Century Science Can Feed the World (Solutions)A Hotter

Agronomists on Polycultures for Biomass

I'm glad to present this paper which was sent to me by James Giese of the American Society of Agronomy, since, as the paper states, the topic of polycultures in farming has been making the scientific literature lately. Any discussion of the monoculture/polyculture debate is encouraging.

This particular paper contains interesting nuggets of information from various studies as well as the

Eastern Words of Wisdom About Today's Global Problems

If we allow despair to take over then we have no strength left for anything at all. Acceptance can bring us peace, and with peace we can have force. ---Thich Nhat Hanh
I am on the same page as Thich Nhat Hanh, here, in my philosophy of presenting the world's problems and I hope that you are, too. Negativism and doomerism will get us nowhere and there is plenty of it in the headlines today. If we

U.S. weekly Grain Market in Review for August 19, 2011

~August 19, 2011~Compared to last week, corn and wheat traded lower for the week as soybeans closed higher. On Thursday of this week the Stock Market plunged over 400 points which led to sharp losses in all the commodity markets. Concerns about weakening global economies and European Banks also a sell-off in the energy markets help to spark liquidation selling in the grain complex on Thursday.

Nineteen Food and Agribusiness Stock Picks Based Upon Dividend Yield

KM: Savers have few options these days and are in need of both safety and yield. The previously unsexy area of agribusiness has gotten almost everyone's attention by now, even that of Meredith Whitney's. (See Meredith Whitney's Statement about Agriculture and Commodities Becoming our Next Decade's Structural Change.)

Listed in the table below are nineteen stocks which passed my screening based

1976 Ranching Photo: Idaho Cowboys and Livestock

Watering tank developed to provide water for livestock (source: usda)

Second Quarter 2011 Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Farmland Price Report

source: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Key points from this report were:
Farmland values for the second quarter of 2011 climbed 17 percent from the level of a year ago in the Seventh Federal Reserve District. This was the largest recorded since the 1970s.Agricultural land values in Indiana and Iowa climbed 20 percent or more in a year, and agricultural land values in Illinois climbed almost as

Second Quarter Farmland Price Gains in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico

Note that the following is taken from the 2nd Quarter 2011 Kansas City Fed Report. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City includes Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and portions of western Missouri and northern New Mexico.


Farmland values rose further in the second quarter, although the pace of farmland value appreciation slowed. The value of nonirrigated and irrigated cropland in

Sixty-two percent of U.S. Farms Have Internet Access

Farm Computer Usage and Ownership: United States 2001-2011

A total of 62 percent of U.S. farms now have Internet access, compared with 59 percent in 2009. Sixty-five percent of farms have access to a computer in 2011, up 1 percentage point from 2009. The proportion of U.S. farms owning or leasing a computer in 2011, at 63 percent, was up 2 percentage points from 2009. Farms using computers for

August 2011 World Bank Report Shows Food Price Index Up 33% Over a Year Ago

The World Bank came out with an updated report on global food prices and stocks. The following is taken from their August 2011 Food Price Watch report:


Food Price TrendsGlobal food prices in July 2011 remain significantly higher than their levels in July 2010. On average, the World Bank Food Price Index remains 33 percent above its level a year ago. Similarly, price levels of a number of major

Farmland Price by State

Farm Real Estate, Average Value per Acre – United States:


Agricultural Land Values Highlights
The United States farm real estate value, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, averaged $2,350 per acre for 2011, up 6.8 percent from 2010. Regional changes in the average value of farm real estate ranged from a 15.9 percent increase in the Corn Belt region to a 2 percent

Surprise! Americans Eat More Refined Grains and Fats than Forty Years Ago!

Flour and cereal products provided more calories per day for the average American than any other food group in 2009.


According to the Loss-Adjusted Food Availability data, Americans are consuming more calories per day than they did nearly 40 years ago. In 1970, Americans consumed an estimated 2,169 calories per person per day whereas in 2009, they consumed an estimated 2,594 calories (after

Agriculture News August 15, 2011

Roberts: I worry that Monsanto recognizes that it's not in their interest to develop and navigate a high-yielding GMO crop through the bureaucratic regulatory maze. Because if they did, they would cannibalize their own profits by driving down commodity prices and thus the amount they could charge farmers for seed. (Greed, Green and Grains)Public sector should develop GM crops for seed companies,

Where does our Dietary Calcium Come From?

Calcium is derived from various sources in the food supply.

Trailer: Summer Pasture

"To be a nomad is to be a herder...I don't know what's going to happen, but it's changing so that it's hard to recognize."
The NYT's did a movie review on "Summer Pasture," which looks to be a beautiful documentary about a culture which I have personally derived a great deal of wisdom from. Will this one, too, be lost?

Locho and Yama, the Tibetan couple who are the focus of the enthralling

Growth in Chicken Meat Supply Over the Past Decades as Compared to Beef and Pork

The amount of chicken available for consumption has steadily increased in the past sixty years.

Boneless, trimmed (edible weight) pounds per capita per year:


The Food Availability data show that food consumption patterns have changed considerably since 1970. In 2009, each American had available to consume, on average, 54 pounds more commercially grown vegetables than in 1970; 60 pounds more

What Is Happening to Corn Farmers in Mexico? Three Films Explain.

For small farmers in rural Mexico, corn farming doesn't eek out a livable wage these days. The genetic diversity of Mexico's many corn varieties and Mexico's culture which revolves around corn, are two conditions worth preserving.

Here We Remain



In rural San Isidro Aloapam in Oaxaca, Mexico, villagers harvest and mill corn while enduring the absence of their family members who have left for

U.S. weekly Grain Market in Review for August 12, 2011

~August 12, 2011~
Compared to last week, grain bids traded mixed with soybeans lower. The financial markets were very volatile this week spilling over into the grains. The news of downgrading U.S. credit rating and weakness in U.S. equity markets triggered the selloff early in the week. Wheat saw additional pressure from Russia competing in the world export market. More rain in the forecast for

Where did Hispanic Population Double in the U.S. from 2000-2010?

Hispanic populations more than doubled in most nonmetro counties in the South and in many otherwise slow-growing or declining sections of the nation’s Heartland. Much of this growth is fueled by demand for low-skill food-processing and manufacturing workers, but expanding service-sector jobs are also attracting Hispanics into many high-amenity areas in the West and elsewhere.

source: usda

Levine: Pulitzer Potato Poetry

A new national poet laureate has been named: Philip Levine. He grew up in industrial Detroit and one of his main themes is the common worker's life.

In 1995, Levine won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for "The Simple Truth."


flickr via La Grande Farmers' Market
The Simple Truth

I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes,
took them home, boiled them in their jackets
and ate them

Farm Photo: Iowa Field

An early use of contour strip cropping
(This reminds me of Grant Wood's "regionalism.")
[year unknown]

Depopulation of the Great Plains Continues via the 2010 Census

Persistent outmigration of youth and natural decrease (an excess of deaths over births) fuel severe population loss throughout the Great Plains and in the Mississippi Delta; suburban expansion and amenity-based migration explain rapid population growth in the South and West.

source: usda

Meredith Whitney's Statement about Agriculture and Commodities Becoming our Next Decade's Structural Change

Meredith Whitney appeared on CNBC today and made an interesting statement about agriculture. She began by explaining that it takes a decade of structural changes to go from one thing to the next in an economy and that our nation doesn't need anymore quick fixes, that it needs a long term plan. She went on to say that we need to go from a leverage economy to an agricultural/commodity/agribusiness

The U.S. Food and Beverage Manufacturing Sector employs 11.9% of all U.S. Manufacturing Workers

The U.S. food and beverage manufacturing sector employs 1.6 million people, or 11.9 percent of all U.S. manufacturing workers. Food and beverage processing plants are located throughout the United States. According to the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns, California had the most food manufacturing plants (5,863) in 2007, while New York (2,320) and Texas (1,991) were also leading food and

Regional Focus: Farm Conditions in Bulgaria and Romania

The following is an interview of Jeff Notaro about farming and the agricultural potential of the Black Sea Region in Eastern Europe.

1. What might surprise readers here the most about this region?

One of the most interesting facts about the Black Sea region is that the area was once considered the “Bread Basket of Europe” before the two World Wars and Communism took their tolls. Starting from

Washington State Leads U.S. Apple Production

Washington State currently produces over half the Nation’s domestically grown apples and has been the leading apple-growing State since the early 1920s. In 2009, Washington State produced 5.4 billion pounds of apples. New York and Michigan produced over 1 billion pounds each. Apple production has been somewhat stable in Washington State, New York, and Michigan since the 1990s, but production in

Agriculture News August 8, 2011

In the past five days I have been within a few feet of a coyote, a black bear, and Al Gore! ---KM
Market Plus - Market Analyst Mark Gold: But the fact of the matter is when you get in the upper third of historically prices you have to realize that there is risk out there, you have to manage this risk, trying to out trade the guys in Chicago is a losing proposition. Only seven percent of outside

Raising Pigeons, and Examples of Pigeon Houses

History of Raising Pigeons
Pigeons were one of the earliest domesticated livestock and their importance as a food source continued until the time of the industrial revolution. It is believed that they were domesticated starting 10,000 years ago and are mentioned in 5,000 year-old Egyptian hieroglyphics. Pigeon houses exist throughout the world but some of the oldest are found in the Middle

Movie Trailer: American Meat

Homesteading Video Includes a Segment on Drying Garden Produce

Living on Four Acres in California: Mark Cooper and his family have been setting up a "sustainable" lifestyle on four acres in California utilizing grass, woodlands, and have raised a variety of animals for their own food. The video includes a segment on drying garden produce (11:15-20:00). It just might inspire you to start drying your zucchini!

U.S. weekly Grain Market in Review for August 5, 2011

~August 5, 2011~Compared to last week, grain and soybean bids traded mixed. The markets had plenty of support going into the month of August as above normal temperatures continued. Grains saw sharp gains led by corn posting limit up gains. Iowa had the hottest July in 56 years had traders worried about pollination issues and yield potential. However, by mid-week the markets took a negative turn

1902 New Mexico Farming Photo: Moki Hoeing Corn

New Mexico Museum of ArtThe Man with the Hoe, Moki Pueblos, 1902; Adam Clark Vroman and Detroit Photographic Company (American, 1856 - 1916); photochrom, 9 x 7 in. (22.9 x 17.8 cm)Adam Clark Vroman was born in La Salle, Illinois. He started working for the Railroad in 1874, but in 1892, to improve his wife's health, the family moved to Pasadena, California. It was then that he began his interest

The singularity is now and coming at us quickly, including in the world of agriculture.

X-ray: NASA/U. of Sydney/G.Anderson et al; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech
One thing that keeps me going as a blogger is the sense that I am participating in something that is bigger than we yet know. Kurzweilian, if you will."Technological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than human intelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such an intelligence

What is NOT driving up food prices? Bulk shipping rates.

"While ocean freight rates at the end of April 2011 were somewhat higher than in February 2011, they were still less than a fourth of the peak levels reached in 2007 and 2008, largely reflecting the increase in shipping capacity."Ocean freight rates affect the cost of imported food commodities. As food commodity prices increased leading up to the 2008 peak, dry bulk freight rates rose even

Farmworker Country of Origin Trends

The share of hired crop farmworkers who were born in the United States or Puerto Rico fell from about 40 percent in 1989-91 to a low of about 18 percent in 1998-2000, while the share born in Mexico rose from 54 percent to 79 percent over the same interval. Since then, the U.S. and Puerto Rico share has rebounded to about 29 percent and the Mexico share has fallen to about 68 percent. The share

Agriculture News August 1, 2011

Please note that there has been some blog maintenance activity going on here in the form of adding labels to posts. Labels are now found on the lower right sidebar and readers should find them quite useful in referencing previous subjects. For example, you might be surprised to find that there have been quite a few recipes posted since the beginning of this blog, so now all you need to do is

America's Natural Resources for Sale

flickr via KimonBerlin (North Antelope Rochelle Mine, Wyoming)Here's another great article from High Country News: The Global West: how foreign investment fuels resource extraction in western states by Jonathan Thompson. (If you're not a subscriber to this fine publication, please consider it.)From the article:My quest to comprehend the most recent surge of globalization led me to Laramie, then