Sharp decline in farm income likely this year
After reaching an eight-year high thanks to massive pandemic payments in 2021, net farm income — USDA's gauge of profitability — is expected to fall precipitously this year. The USDA will make its first forecast of farm income on Friday.
Brazil may feel fertilizer pinch more than U.S.
U.S. farmers face sky-high fertilizer prices as the spring planting season approaches, but their supply may be more assured than that of Brazil growers in the wake of economic sanctions on Russia, said three university economists. Brazil imports 85 percent of its fertilizer, with Russia ordinarily supplying one-fifth of it.
Farmers, hit by supply chain delays, expect higher input costs
Supply-chain disruptions "haunt the nation's agricultural sector," with four of every 10 large-scale farmers and ranchers reporting difficulties in buying inputs ranging from fertilizer to farm equipment parts, according to a Purdue University survey released on Tuesday. Operators also increasingly expect to pay dearly for the goods.
More farmers worry about large increases in input costs
More than half of America's big farmers expect prices for inputs such as fertilizer and fuel to soar by more than 12 percent in the coming year, a sign of inflation fears felt across the economy, said a poll released by Purdue University on Tuesday. The latest government report pegged inflation at 6.2 percent, the highest in three decades.
Biggest farm equipment maker also is a large farm lender
"Nothing runs like a Deere," according to an old tagline for the world's largest farm equipment maker, and nothing lends like a Deere, either, says the Wall Street Journal. The company, which lends billions of dollars to farmers who buy its equipment, "is providing more short-term credit for crop supplies such as seeds, chemicals and fertilizer, making it the No. 5 agricultural lender."
One way to boost ag productivity in developing world: support women farmers
Women make up two-fifths of the agricultural work force in developing countries yet are often at a disadvantage in gaining access to land, credit, training and "inputs" such as seed and fertilizer, says the Farming First coalition. A research paper underlines that point by looking at differences in fertilizer use by women and men farmers.
NRCS trains farmers to protect the microbes in their soil
The Natural Resources Conservation Service is on a nationwide mission to train farmers to protect the microorganisms in soil—and their relationship to crops— instead of destroying them with fertilizer and chemical sprays, says an Orion Magazine story produced with the Food and Environment Reporting Network.