June 6, 2024

A five-minute summary of AAI, regulation, and industry activities for members of the largest state agribusiness association in the nation.

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AAI CHAIRMAN'S GOLF TOURNAMENT

The Preserve On Rathbun Lake

Mark Tuttle planted more soy and less corn on his northern Illinois farm this spring as prices for both crops hover near three-year lows and soybeans' lower production costs offered him the best chance of turning a profit in the country's top soy producing state.

He even planted soybeans in one of his fields for a second straight year, breaking the traditional soy-corn-soy rotation for field management. He and many other farmers are hoping to just minimize losses.

Planting more soy at a time of sputtering demand from importers and domestic processors will only serve to drive prices lower, further swell historically large global supplies and erode U.S. farm incomes already poised for the steepest annual drop ever in dollar terms.

But Midwest farmers' other main options - seeding more corn or leaving fields fallow - could have resulted in even wider losses.

"There's a better chance of making money with soybeans than there is for corn right now," Tuttle said. "But if we have another bigger crop, prices are going to go lower and that's not going to bode well for the farmer."

In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast farmers would plant 86.5 million acres of soybeans nationwide this spring, the fifth most ever. Some analysts expect soybean acres to increase by another million acres or more as heavy rains close the window on corn planting.

[...] Read Full Story

Delmarva Chicken Association, Maryland Farm Bureau, and Maryland Grain Producers Association applauded an Appellate Court of Maryland ruling that affirmed right-to-farm provisions protecting a Talbot County farm’s ability to use modern nutrient management techniques.

The May 30 ruling, In the Matter of Cheryl Lewis, et al., written by Judge Glenn T. Harrell, Jr., affirmed the principle that Maryland’s right-to-farm law broadly shields farmers and their operations from vexatious lawsuits. Maryland’s right-to-farm law protects farm operations from litigation asserting that the farm is a nuisance or that a farm interferes with others’ use of their property, as long as they are utilizing standard agricultural practices.

In this case, the Circuit Court for Talbot County had previously reversed a Talbot County Agricultural Resolution Board ruling that a particular Talbot County farm was protected by Maryland’s right-to-farm law. The Circuit Court decision had questioned a suspected discrepancy in the law, setting a dangerous precedent that could allow farmers to be sued while following normal agricultural practices. However, Judge Harrell’s May 30 ruling overruled the Circuit Court opinion and found that the Talbot County Agricultural Resolution Board had made the correct decision.

When Maryland’s General Assembly modified the right-to-farm law in 1998, it “contemplated a scenario like the one at issue here: an expanded nutrient management system,” Judge Harrell wrote. “That regulation does not require a particular agricultural operation to exist for one year in order to enjoy liability protection,” he wrote, and so “the expanded use of soil conditioners and Class A biosolids at the Foster Farm was a protected activity.”

[...] Read Full Story

Despite concerns that China is buying or leasing all the farmland in the United States, new Cornell-led research shows that this is not the case.

Using a federal dataset of more than 40,000 foreign investments in U.S. agricultural land as of 2020, Wendong Zhang, assistant professor and extension economist at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and collaborators show that countries classified by the federal government as “adversary,” such as China, held only 1 percent of the roughly 40 million acres of foreign-owned farmland. The top foreign country in terms of ownership of U.S. agricultural land? Canada, which owned about a third, much of it Maine and Michigan forestland.

And while foreign ownership has increased steadily over the past two decades, long-term leasing is the main driver of the increasing foreign interests, and many foreign transactions are related to renewable-energy development.

“I became interested in this, especially Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland, because of the political attention it was getting,” Zhang said. “And there’s an increase in state-level legislation in Texas, Florida, Indiana, and other places. We wanted to look at the facts, given the spread of rumors.”

Zhang is a co-author of “Mapping and Contextualizing Foreign Ownership and Leasing of U.S. Farmland,” which appears in the 2024 Journal of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. Other co-authors are Fangyao Wang, a research assistant in Zhang’s group; and Mykel Taylor, associate professor of agricultural economics and rural sociology at Auburn University.



[...] Read Full Story

The word "massive" came up often when officials with Continuum Ag spoke about the potential for biofuels producers and farmers to cash in on the upcoming 45Z tax credit, at the company's annual topsoil summit in Riverside, Iowa, on Monday.

The question of how -- or if -- agriculture will see a payout from the $1 per-gallon Clean Fuel Production Credit, however, puts many producers in a position they're familiar with: cautious optimism.

Last week the IRS released guidance for biofuels producers on how to register for 45Z, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2025. The IRS said it continued to work on additional guidance to include an updated Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation, or GREET, model.

In the meantime, a growing number of farmers are calculating their individual carbon-intensity scores and making on-farm adjustments to lower those scores -- with hope their efforts will pay off.

Others are considering it.

Southeast Iowa farmer Ryan Oberman said during a farmers panel at the event attended by hundreds of farmers and biofuels producers for his 1,200-acre corn and soybean farm he saw the need to improve soil health when he started delving into regenerative ag a few years ago.

If someday farmers are paid for their conservation practices, Oberman said that too would be beneficial.

"You know, I think it's still up in the air," he said when asked about the potential of the 45Z credit.

"We started doing this for the soil health side of things. So, I was going to do it either way. And if we can get paid for it, great. And if it doesn't turn anything, we're still gonna have better soil."

[...] Read Full Story

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