A wet fall increased crop drying costs and delayed harvests. Profits and capital spending fell slightly for ag customers, according to lenders responding to the Minneapolis Fed’s fourth-quarter (January) agricultural credit conditions survey. More farmers and ranchers delayed repayment and extended loans. Lenders have bountiful funds, but loan demand was flat and collateral requirements increased. Land prices and cash rents were relatively stable during the quarter. Interest rates on loans did not change much from the third quarter. The ...<< MORE >>

Times Online - The world’s most powerful investors have been advised to buy farmland, stock up on gold and prepare for a “dirty war” by Marc Faber, the notoriously bearish market pundit, who predicted the 1987 stock market crash.

The bleak warning of social and financial meltdown, delivered today in Tokyo at a gathering of 700 pension and sovereign wealth fund managers.

Dr Faber, who advised his audience to pull out of American stocks one week before the ...<< MORE >>

(Reuters) - The value of farmland in the heart of the U.S. grain belt, the world's largest grain exporting region, rose 2 percent in 2009, boosted by a rebound in the fourth quarter, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago said on Thursday.

"With a 2 percent annual increase for 2009 in the value of 'good' agricultural land, the District experienced its smallest change in a decade," the Fed said in its quarterly survey of 214 regional bankers.

"Still, this small annual increase, registered for the final quarter of ...<< MORE >>

Royal Dutch Shell plc has plans to strike a deal with Brazil’s Cosan for a $21 billion a year ethanol joint venture. Shell will become the first major oil company to access ethanol on this scale. The deal will be Cosans largest entry into fuel distribution as well. Cosan purchased Exxon Mobil’s Esso chain of service stations for $1 billion in 2008. Shell and Cosan’s 50/50 joint venture features 4,500 filling stations nationwide.

The companies plan to more than double ethanol output to up to 5 billion liters a year from about...<< MORE >>

OMAHA, Neb. – For the first time since August of last year, the overall index for the Rural Mainstreet economy declined and continues to indicate significant economic weakness, according to the February survey of bank CEOs in a 10-state region.

The Rural Mainstreet Index (RMI), which ranges between 0 and 100, slumped to 36.6 from January’s 41.0. A reading of 50.0 is considered growth neutral.

“The RMI has remained below growth neutral for 24 consecutive months. It is clear that the rural economy...<< MORE >>

This picture was submitted by Luciano in Argentina. The soybeans are running thick in Argentina this year by the looks of this picture taken earlier this week. There have been estimates of Argentina’s soybean crop to be over 1.8 billion bushels this year because of excellent weather. All across the world people will be watching to see how the South American soybean harvest progresses and how it will affect grain prices globally.

 

Remember, we are always looking for more agricultural pictures from anywhere in the world. Submit pictures to farmlandforecast@colvin-co.com.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi-based National Agricultural Development Co (Nadec) said on Sunday it has completed procedures to obtain a 42,000-hectare farmland in Sudan.

Saudi Arabia has urged companies to invest in farm projects abroad after abandoning a 30-year old programme for self sufficiency in wheat in 2008. The programme depleted the desert kingdom's scarce water supplies.

The decision forced many local agricultural companies growing wheat for the domestic market...<< MORE >>

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Farmland values in the U.S. central Plains rose 2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 as crop prices climbed while ranchland values fell with livestock markets, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City said Friday.

The Fed's tenth district is a leading U.S. producer of cattle and wheat, corn and other top row crops. It stretches across Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming and parts of New Mexico and Missouri. So land values, the main collateral for most farm loans, are widely watched as an economic...<< MORE >>

Anything can be insured today; let it be a cat, car, or crop. Crop insurance has been in existence since the early 1930s. Federal crop insurance was established to combat the effects of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. If a farmer were to pick out crop insurance today, they would have many different options to choose from.

Crop insurance provides a safety net for farmers by reimbursing them due to revenue or yield diminishing ...<< MORE >>

KANSAS CITY (Reuters) -- DuPont on Thursday said it would set up an advisory committee to study public policy and other agriculture and food production issues as the global conglomerate positions its crop and chemicals businesses to address a rapidly growing world population.

Former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle will chair the committee on "Agricultural Innovation & Productivity for the 21st Century," which, among other initiatives, is to examine public-policy mechanisms to help increase agricultural production as global population soars toward an expected 9 billion people by ...<< MORE >>