Five Guys: SoCal Farms Goes Big On CBD Hemp
All in on hemp. Ear to the ground in 2011, Don Collins prepared for change as he listened to rumblings of the first genuinely new crop of his 45-year career, eventually handpicking a farming team to move into place when the legal barriers to hemp production toppled. Enter SoCal...
Farmland Values Hold Firm
Land Values Stubbornly Stable as Farmers Keep Buying Despite the fifth year of lower commodity prices and projections for negative profit margins heading into 2019, farmland prices remain stubbornly stable. Farm Credit Services of America, based in Omaha, Nebraska, reported its benchmark farm values down 1.4% in Iowa compared...
How to Start Your Own Vineyard
Who hasn’t secretly (or not so secretly) dreamed of opening their own vineyard? The idea of walking through rows and rows of plump purple grapes sounds heavenly. Plus, all the free wine you can drink! Pour yourself a glass of merlot or chardonnay and let’s learn all about starting...
What’s the Difference Between a Farm and Ranch?
If someone were to ask you the difference between a farm and a ranch, would you be able to tell them? While many people use the terms ranch and farm interchangeably, they actually have some very specific differences. They’re both large lots of land and are tended to by...
Trading in Tile
Farmer Exchanges Drainage Infrastructure for Long-Term Leases Dave Albin has a strong motivation to ensure his family’s six-generation Illinois farm continues for decades to come. In doing so, he tries to make the farm as productive as possible for their operation as well as their landowners. To that end,...
Why Land Values Are Not Falling
Many signs pointed to a crash. Multiple years of low farm profitability, the upward trajectory of interest rates and a rise in farmers exiting the profession were just a few of the indicators suggesting farmland values would drop. Yet that’s not reality. The average acre of U.S. cropland is worth $4,090,...
Farmland: The Ultimate Complement to a Precious Metals Portfolio
“There’s going to be some fortunes made in agriculture, and when an industry breaks full faith, even mediocre people make a lot of money…”[i] – Jim Rogers, Co-Founder of the Quantum Fund, Austrian Economist and commodity guru. Well-diversified hard asset investors include farmland in their portfolios for a combination of...
Ready for Ag’s Reset? Multi-Year Losses Take a Toll
Agriculture is in the midst of an economic reset that will thin the ranks of some of the largest farm operators but offer growth opportunities for those who have patiently held on to cash. That was the counsel from Dave Kohl, a professor emeritus in ag economics from Virginia...
Messin’ With Mom’s House
I get this question about once a month: Mom is moving to assisted living, her house is being sold and the attorney said we should see our tax adviser. If Mom owned and occupied the home as her principal residence for at least two of the five years preceding...
Pulse of Rural America – 2
Land Prices, Rental Rates and Consolidation All Concern Farmers OMAHA (DTN) — Land values, passing the farm to the next generation, biotechnology and agribusiness mergers are just a few of the major concerns on farmers’ minds in 2016. DTN/The Progressive Farmer polled 1,647 rural residents in the third “The...