Talking Crops AgFax

Recently the crop insurance program has become the target of federal budget cuts. In this podcast University of Nebraska's Market Journal interviews Kansas State Ag Economics Professor, Art Barnaby, who explores possible cuts that could be made to the crop insurance program, which could even include eliminating the Harvest Price option. This comes after a 3 billion dollar cut in October which capped insurer's rates of return.

Having a farmland lease agreement based on a handshake may be an easy way to avoid paperwork, but not having a written agreement can be a sure way of opening a can of worms. This can be especially true for family members who inherit property or during times of weak commodity prices.

In this podcast Eddie Davis who is a farm manager for Brown Land and Farm Management in Rayville, LA discusses the importance of having a written lease and what could go wrong with just a handshake.

Budgeting for next year is going to be tight for many farmers due to low commodity prices and high cash rents. Some economists have even suggested cutting upwards to $100 dollar per acre. In this podcast Purdue University Ag Economics Professor Michael Gunderson suggests budgeting based on output costs instead of cutting input costs strait out.

Boom bust cycles had an impact on agriculture markets in both the 1980s and 70s. Current economic indications may point to another bust ahead. In this podcast University of Nebraska's Market Journal interviews Kansas State Ag Economics head, Allen Featherstone, who discusses how financial lessons from the past may help producers get through tough times head.

This episode of Talking Crops comes from "Landlords and the cash rent issue" by Harwood D. Schaffer & Daryll E. Ray who are Economists at the University of Tennessee.

Talking Crops: Cutting Budgets by $100 an Acre - Gary Schnitkey by AgFax