Farm Policy

It is hard to imagine the run-up in commodity prices that coincided with the Great Recession almost 10 years ago. Optimism in agriculture soon reached a record high, and it was not hard to believe farm prices had undergone a permanent upward »

USDA is set to release county yields on February 23, and these estimates will provide a lot of clarity on the size of agricultural risk coverage (ARC) payments this fall. While we wait for this information, I think a state-of-play snapshot on »

Ever seen a whale in Indiana? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has if you believe its recent biological evaluations on vital insecticides chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion. Last month I wrote about regulatory overreach and the need for farmer engagement, and »

While last month I wrote about sustainability focusing on carbon intensity and systems such as the Low Carbon Fuel Standard that reward farmers for low CO2 emissions, another aspect of sustainability with practical implications for farmers is the environmental regulatory climate. On »

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service recently released county yields, which the Farm Service Agency will use to calculate Agriculture Risk Coverage - County payments this fall. The final yields and how they are calculated are gaining increasingly negative attention, especially with »