This article documents the very late planting that is occurring in 2019, leading to the prospects of lower yields and higher than normal prevented planting from crop insurance. As a result, one suspects that corn prices will increase. For many…

Recent soybean price volatility highlights the uncertainty underpinning the soybean market. The sudden drop last Friday gives an indication of the fragility of the current soybean market, in particular. The following factors bear watching for possible pricing opportunities during the…

The March 15, 2019 farmdoc daily reviewed ‘Accumulating Liabilities’ in the balance sheet of a group of observations in the Illinois FBFM Association dataset from 2013 to 2017. While that article considered the changes to debt on the balance sheet…

Historically, challenging times create strong temptation to recycle old policy ideas; a reversion to policies discarded in the past when cyclical problems reappear.  As is well known, recent years have returned relatively lower commodity prices with expectations of more challenging…

With only 9% of the Illinois corn crop planted by April 28 and with 3 to 5 inches of rain this past week in the northern half of the state, and above normal just about everywhere else, there has been…

Continued wet weather and saturated soils over much of the Midwest suggests that many farmers will be facing decisions on whether to take prevented planting.  Prevented planting is available for those individuals purchasing the Common Crop Insurance (COMBO) product. Once…