Unpacking Applied Academic Agribusiness Programs
I had the incredible opportunity to build an undergraduate agribusiness program at Greenville University for nearly a decade beginning in 2016. I have four agricultural degrees from public land grant universities and worked in university research and extension. But working … Continue reading →
Processed Food Grain Purchases for 2024 in Rural Illinois – Food Price Fun
Food Price Fun compares the theory of food prices to practices of buying food. On the one hand the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) Consumer Price Index (CPI) food prices provide the benchmark for the macroeconomy of food. But … Continue reading →
A Look Back at Local 2024 Food Purchases – Food Price Fun
While reviewing 2024 household expenditures at year’s end, the items within each grocery bill were retrievable. Access to this level of analysis opens new opportunities for understanding food prices. In the random data universe, this is an n=1. In other … Continue reading →
Managing the Cost of Food Waste Inflation
Biomass Rules operates at the intersection of production agricultural food production and opportunities to bring value-adding, agricultural byproducts back into the economy through reuse. The moving target for value-adding byproducts is the pool of undervalued wastes. The knowledge of agricultural … Continue reading →
The Power of USDA Data in Market Transparency
This chart is from the USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS), USDA Agricultural Projections to 2034, released on 2/18/25. The 2025 USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum occurred the following week, 2/27-28/25. This series of events mark the end of the last US … Continue reading →
USDA NASS Releases Finer Field Resolution of Cropland Data Layer
One fun announcement from last week’s, USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum was the release of a finer resolution of field boundaries in the continental United States. The United States with the exception of Hawaii is available at a 10-meter resolution. This … Continue reading →
The Heartbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza
Last Thursday and Friday, (2/27 & 2/28/2025), the USDA held their annual February, Agricultural Outlook Forum in DC. This marks the start of another growing season. The February date allows for last year’s crop year data to be tabulated and … Continue reading →
Ethanol Production Optimizes Outputs – University of Illinois
On the eve of USDA’s Ag Outlook Forum, Scott Irwin posted his analysis, Trends in the Operational Efficiency of the U.S. Ethanol Industry: 2024 Update. It looks at four simultaneous outputs: ethanol, DDGS, corn oil, and CO2, from dry-mill ethanol … Continue reading →
Eggs at $5 per Dozen are Still Good Value
The price of eggs reported by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics used in the January Consumer Price Index (CPI), was $4.95 per dozen. In many places it is higher than this. In the Midwest if you know where to … Continue reading →
Discovering Manure Value When Markets and CAFO Regulations Both Fail
When markets fail to perform efficiently does that mean only a government policy fix will work? Or when the government policies fail does that mean only a market fix will succeed? In a word, no. This chart shows the total … Continue reading →