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 →
Ten years ago, while working for University of Missouri – Extension, I had the privilege of joining a curriculum development team on estate and farm transfers. We developed the idea of a case, or at least believable story, to go … Continue reading →
In the most recent post, the case was made that in their role as producers, farms transform inputs into outputs more than establish and maintain markets in the final goods and services, retail sector. The 2022 Census of Agriculture also … Continue reading →
Abraham Lincoln commissioned the first census of farm by the Department of Agriculture 180 years ago. Some of the data categories have not changed since then, like specifying a farm of 1 to 9 acres in size. As a culture, … Continue reading →
