Over the last few decades, financing the family farm has shifted. Farm policies and farm management begin with the idea of a farm as the central business unit of a farm household. This is an excellent place to begin. But … Continue reading →
US farms are very diverse but are easy to group into a common label. The 1.9 million farms counted by USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) for 2023, are all authentically US farms. The average number of farms per state … Continue reading →
The United States is losing farmland but productivity and output continue to increase. Last week, the loss of 11 million acres of pastureland to cropland was explored. That blog also examined the over emphasized claims on cattle as an environmental … Continue reading →
Land use change has gotten complicated. Tracking changes in climate have added more than simply physical changes in land use. The first step in understanding the more sophisticated land use change implications is to understand what land is changing. The … Continue reading →
Farm management focuses on business decision making for the business unit of the farm. But access to external cash-flows from off-farm income takes some pressure off the total dependence on the success of the farm business unit. Farm Enterprise Analysis … Continue reading →
Biomass Rules Blog students who were working ahead on last week’s crude oil and corn price comparison likely hit an impasse when downloading the monthly corn price data from USDA. The USDA, National Ag Statistics Service (NASS), Quick Stats monthly … Continue reading →
Number 2 Yellow Corn plays many roles these days. Among them both ‘sustainable savior,’ as well as, ‘destroyer of humanity and the planet.’ That is a pretty broad range. Back in the good old days, 20 years ago, corn was … Continue reading →
The first federal census of agriculture was conducted in 1840. It has been conducted for 184 years. The oldest hardcopy of the US Census of Agriculture in the Biomass Rules collection is from 1982. We have been reading and analyzing … Continue reading →
Paying $3 for a drive-thru coffee is a rational choice when the alternative is no coffee at all. It is also reasonable to pay $4 for a box of corn cereal. If one, 12-ounce box of cereal provides 8 bowls … Continue reading →
Food is as old as dirt. However, in 2024 the word ‘food’ is poorly understood. Pandemics, supply-chain challenges, trade wars, real wars; have all contributed to growing concern about access to food. Clarifying and aligning definitions of food will take … Continue reading →
