Farming is a business. Complete with a lot of moving parts, huge capital investment, and low margins. Adding in the trend toward farm consolidation, those larger farms that remain are left feeling a bit isolated. What’s a forward-looking farmer to do? Join a professional peer group where you get ...

Agriculture has been consolidating for almost a century. There were 6.8 million American farms in 1935, today, less than 2 million. About 160,000 of those two million American farms do the bulk of the heavy lifting, production wise, with more than 90% of farm revenue. Consolidation has been the n...

Big companies have gotten bigger in Agriculture, generally by acquiring, or merging with, other companies. Consolidation in the Business of Agriculture has been going on for decades and it’s likely to continue. The question is: Who benefits from consolidation in the Agriculture industry? Damian M...

For years Agriculture has prioritized production, transport-ability, appearance, and efficiency in the food we make. But what about nutrients? Did nutrient content of food get relegated to the back seat? Somewhat, and that’s changing, as consumers demand tastier, more nutritious food. University ...

The last twenty years have been very good ones — financially speaking — for American Agriculture. The last three years 2021, ’22, and ’23 are the highest farm income years ever in both nominal and inflation adjusted, real dollars. Now, in 2024, we face a revenue downturn. While commodity prices a...

In production Agriculture we tend to over manage for some pathogens — corn root worm for instance — while under managing for others such as Fusarium. Mike Tweedy with PatternAg cites his company's recent finding in a certain geography where Fusarium — a disease for which we generally under manage...

Money was pouring into Agricultural startups a few years ago. What’s the investment climate look like now? Damian Mason is joined by Business Transaction Attorney Max Bremer on this episode of The Business of Agriculture. They discuss money flow into Ag, the pace of mergers and acquisitions, and ...

Most people don’t hold investment money in the Ag commodity space. That may be changing as investing in things like corn is made easier via ETFs — exchange traded funds. Jake Hanley with Teucrium explains the oftentimes complex commodities trading industry and how his company is simplifying — or ...

Fruits and vegetables have been bred over the past half century for the primary objective of transportability and shelf life. The tradeoff: taste and nutrient density. As marketplaces mature and consumers are afforded increasing food options in the produce section, might a play toward taste, nutr...

Most of the fertilizer applied to fields, doesn’t actually get absorbed by the plant. That’s an economic as well as environmental liability for Agriculture. Technological advances in adjuvants, fertilizer amendments and biologicals aim to change farming. In this episode of The Business of Agricul...

Frank Tiegs started farming in the Columbia basin region of Washington in 1975. Then he bought an apple packing facility. From there, the operation has expanded mightily to involve 140,000 acres of farming and 15 food processing facilities. Upon Frank’s recent passing, his son Keith re-joined the...

Indiana appears poised to become the twenty-fifth state to restrict — or outright ban — ownership of Agricultural real estate by foreign entities. Many people — from both within and outside of Ag — have been calling for such legislation. Currently, twenty four states have similar laws on the book...

A full three quarters of farmworkers in the U.S. are migrants and many are here illegally. Add in food service, meat processing, and the ancillary industries that feed the food business and you’re talking about a LOT of foreign-born workers who work to put food on America’s table. Is the migrant ...

In the last episode Todd Thurman joined Damian to cover a topic most in Agriculture have never considered: Are we permanently over supplied with Agricultural commodities? Pointing out the reasons demand won’t outpace - or even keep up with - our productive capacity, Thurman and Mason painted a pi...

We in Agriculture love production! For example, we’re producing about 50% more corn, soy, and pork than we did just a quarter century ago here in the U.S. The playbook for decades has been: find more global markets to peddle our commodities so we can keep doing what we like doing, which is produc...

It’s setting up to be a challenging year for farm economics. Add to that: it’s an election year, Washington DC is as dysfunctional as ever, and we still don’t have a Farm Bill — which was supposed to have been passed last year. What’s the outlook financially for farms. What about trade policy? Do...

Nationally, between 30 and 40% of farmland is rented to an operator from a land owner. But how are rental rates for this hugely valuable asset class determined? Are the rental rates fair? What causes variability in values? Howard Halderman of Halderman Real Estate and Farm Management explains the...

Kyle Beaver is a self-admitted Jack-of-all-Trades who, at age 25, turned a Google search into a mushroom business. Six years later he’s refining Ten Mile Mushrooms and launched a subsidiary. The business still grows some fungus for consumption but has morphed into a supplier of ready-to-fruit sub...

Agricultural trade events can be a lot of fun, but are they always valuable? And who are they valuable to? Brandon Wipf, South Dakota farmer and co-chair of Commodity Classic 2024, joins Damian Mason and XtremeAg’s Kelly Garrett to talk trade events. How do these two business-minded farmers get v...

Blake Matthews returned to the Idaho family farming operation twenty years ago. Upon his return, he began experimenting with a new array of products and practices, including bio-nutrients. First, he used bio-nutrients to help his sugar beets bounce back after applying glyphosate. He moved on to p...

22 years ago, immediately after graduating from college AND getting married, John Carroll and his new bride flew to Brazil to start farming. John’s family, with a farming operation in west central Illinois, had just purchased farm land in a newly developed Ag area of Brazil. Today John and his fa...

In Agriculture we generally have the perception that farmers as price takers are being short-changed as “middle men” make all the margin. While it’s popular to talk about “cutting out the middle man,” how realistic is it to actually happen? Ryan Moe and Todd Thurman join Damian to discuss who the...

Ag commodity marketing is too complex, largely misunderstood, and the industry is full of products and services you probably don’t even need to profitably market your grain. That truth bomb — along with many more — is courtesy of Joe Vaclavik of Standard Grain. Mr. Vaclavik, a former grain trader...

Interest rates appear to be stabilizing, wage and food inflation are still worsening, and predictions for America’s Ag sector are a bit dour for 2024. What’s going on at the macro-economic level and what does it mean for Agriculture? Compeer’s Chief Risk Officer, Bill Moore, joins Damian to discu...