Central Iowa farmers, like Dean Taylor of Prairie City, face a washout on some fields after receiving 10 to 15 inches of rain last week. Knocking 70 bushels per acre of potential out of a corn field would erase a renter's margins, given today's record rents. (DTN photo by Elizabeth Williams)
Cash Rent Hangover - 1
Legacy of 2008 Haunts Cash Renters
Thu Aug 19, 2010 06:12 AM CDT
Cash rents never recalibrated after the 2008 commodity price spike. Input costs remain stuck at the second-highest level in history. That means renters shoulder higher outlays and credit lines, but with stagnant or smaller profit potentials.
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NH3 prices are running almost 39 percent higher than a year ago.
DTN Retail Fertilizer Trends
 NH3 on Upward TrajectorySubscriber Content
Tue Aug 24, 2010 02:54 PM CDT
Few farmers locked in fall prices prior to the rally.
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Chart by Kim Adrian
Ag Interest Rate SnapshotSubscriber Content
Thu Sep 2, 2010 07:40 AM CDT
Track daily moves in farm mortgages and operating credit, based on interest rates supplied by a major farm lender.
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Sudden death syndrome is a late-season fusarium, but farmers suspect other causes of SDS, and they don't have much to do with science, Adam Erwin says. (DTN photo by Dan Davidson)
MBAg by Adam Erwin
It's Test Plot TimeSubscriber Content
Wed Sep 1, 2010 08:29 AM CDT
Intelligence gathered at this year's soybean test plots focused on the non-scientific causes of sudden death syndrome, says DTN's tongue-in-cheek Midwest farmer columnist Adam Erwin.
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Operators with multiple enterprises may need accounting systems that not only track individual breakevens, but can report accrual and cash results. (DTN/The Progressive Farmer photo by Jeff Litrell, BRT)
Ask the Taxman by Andy Biebl
What's a User-Friendly Accounting Program?Subscriber Content
Mon Aug 23, 2010 12:15 PM CDT
CPA Andy Biebl answers readers' questions on user-friendly enterprise accounting systems, charitable trusts and how employer-provided health insurance can reduce payroll taxes.
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Recently I reported that the permanent farm disaster aid program made princes and paupers out of farmers in states struck by farm revenue losses when it first launched for the 2008 crop last January. SURE, the Supplemental Revenue Assistance program, rewarded some growers with maximum $100,000 payments while others with equally legitimate losses collected zero because of technical glitches.
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The hangover of 2008's commodity price binge remains with us, even though the party of $13 wheat and $8 corn is long gone. That was the thrust of this week's DTN staff series, "The Cash Rent Hangover," and it's worth a little more discussion about what farmers can do about it now that 2011's cash rent negotiation season is gearing up.
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A decade ago, a 10,000-acre farm was considered "big." But as DTN South America Correspondent Kieran Gartlan reported in his "South America Calling" blog last week, Brazil now boasts corporate megafarms that would dwarf the biggest of the U.S.
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Some farmers in the Upper Midwest don't remember they experienced a disaster in 2010, but in many cases growers received the maximum $100,000 SURE disaster payments anyway, thanks largely to an all-time record drop between spring futures prices and fall harvest.
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More Minding Ag's Business...
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Operators with multiple enterprises may need accounting systems that not only track individual breakevens, but can report accrual and cash results. (DTN/The Progressive Farmer photo by Jeff Litrell, BRT)
Ask the Taxman by Andy Biebl
What's a User-Friendly Accounting Program?Subscriber Content
8/23 12:10PM
CPA Andy Biebl answers readers' questions on user-friendly enterprise accounting systems, charitable trusts and how employer-provided health insurance can reduce payroll taxes.
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Sudden death syndrome is a late-season fusarium, but farmers suspect other causes of SDS, and they don't have much to do with science, Adam Erwin says. (DTN photo by Dan Davidson)
MBAg by Adam Erwin
It's Test Plot TimeSubscriber Content
9/1 8:25AM
Intelligence gathered at this year's soybean test plots focused on the non-scientific causes of sudden death syndrome, says DTN's tongue-in-cheek Midwest farmer columnist Adam Erwin.
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There's no national standard to gauge farm performance, but don't compare your operation to others at the bottom of the scale, or even the middle. Compare yourself to the best, so you know what to aim for.
Klinefelter: By the Numbers
Benchmark Your Performance Subscriber Content
8/26 11:25AM
Compare yourself to top-tier peers -- not the average -- to tweak your farm's financials. In ag, it's not unusual for the top 20 percent to make respectable money when the bottom 20 percent lose it.
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