Re: The IOWA FARMLAND rush continues on...........
 

Description:
123.5 acres between Center Point and Central City on blacktop. 123.63 acres tillable with 82.3 CSR. Excellent Investment Quality Farm! $5,450/A.

and...

OGLE COUNTY
Description:
121 acres. 114.2 tillable. Southeast Ogle County centrally located between Dixon and Rochelle. $5,575/A.


Do I think these are good investments?

Yes, but once we arrive at the 6,000 figure for THIS YEAR, would recommend backing off.

As stated, I'm looking at selling in 2009 in the 6350-6600 range and by doing so, take some money off the table in profits.

-FH-

Re: The IOWA FARMLAND rush continues on...........
 

Senate passes energy bill.

The Senate last night approved an energy bill which would boost ethanol/renewable fuel use and would also raise mileage requirements for automobiles.

Re: The IOWA FARMLAND rush continues on...........
 

[ QUOTE ]
Senate passes energy bill.

The Senate last night approved an energy bill which would boost ethanol/renewable fuel use and would also raise mileage requirements for automobiles.

[/ QUOTE ]

CRUDE OIL is trading over $72 currently!

Ethanol stocks have been surging the past two weeks........the outlook for renewable energy has never looked better than right now.

Have any of you posters seen any ethanol pumps show up in your vicinity yet?

-FH-

Re: The IOWA FARMLAND rush continues on...........
 

Yes. But I was in Iowa.

Re: The IOWA FARMLAND rush continues on...........
 

[ QUOTE ]

Farming for Dollars
July 6, 2007; Page A8

As Sisyphean tasks go, a reduction in farm subsidies is the domestic version of Arab-Israeli peace. But as Congress writes another five-year farm bill, we're glad to see that a few brave Members are still willing to give it a try.

And if they ever have chance, it ought to be this year. Farmers have been pocketing about $20 billion a year in taxpayer handouts, even as they enjoy record crop prices. Thanks to the ethanol subsidy boom, corn has hit as high as $4 a bushel, more than double the 2005 price. Yet almost half of all farm subsidies go to corn growers, thanks to the clout of Midwest and Plains-state Senators. The USDA reports that prices for wheat, soybeans and sugar are also at "near-historic highs." Farm incomes are now about 30% higher than the average for all workers. And thanks to a surge in land values, the average net worth of a full time farmer is $830,000.

The (temporarily) historic Freedom to Farm Act, enacted in the mid-1990s, was intended to phase out federal subsidies by the year 2002. But Congress couldn't resist the pressure for annual farm bailouts, and farm payments increased to $23 billion in 2001 from $7 billion in 1996. Then in 2002 Congress reinstated price supports to end these annual bailouts. That didn't work either.

Farmers have received price supports and an annual "emergency" payout every year since 2001. In 2003, drought assistance went to farmers in hundreds of counties where investigators later discovered there was no drought. Farmers in Washington state received earthquake assistance even when their crops weren't damaged. Yet the farm lobby continues to push $7 billion in new "emergency" payouts this year for livestock, milk, fisheries and rural development aid.

The enduring myth is that all of this aid goes to needy family farms. In reality price supports have accelerated the demise of small farms because the benefits go to the most profitable growers. Citizens Against Government Waste has documented that three-quarters of the payments under the 2002 farm bill have gone to the richest 10% of farmers. More than half of the $1.9 billion sugar program lines the pockets of the wealthiest 1% of plantation owners.

Although the law technically limits any single ranch or farm from receiving more than $360,000 in farm subsidies in a year, you can drive a John Deere tractor through the loopholes. In 2003 the biggest single recipient of farm aid was Riceland Foods, in Arkansas, which bagged $69 million, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. Other "farmers" collecting payments include ExxonMobil, Chevron, International Paper and Caterpillar.

The Bush Administration has proposed modest reforms that are worth supporting (see "Washington Harvest" editorial, March 27). But a more ambitious effort is being pushed by an unlikely pair of House Members, Wisconsin Democrat Ron Kind and Arizona Republican Jeff Flake. They'd phase out most direct cash subsidies to farmers and reroute funds into "risk management accounts."

These would be insurance policies that farmers could draw upon in years when their incomes fall unexpectedly. Some of the money for the funds would come from the government, in lieu of subsidies, and some would come from the farmers themselves. Farmers could put up to $8,000 a year tax-free into the accounts, similar to a contribution to an IRA. After 2014 the accounts would become self-financing by the farmers, and government payments would eventually cease.

The Kind-Flake bill would steer tax dollars away from the wealthiest agribusinesses, while funding a safety net for moderate-income farmers facing real financial strain due to bad weather, low prices, or crop failure. Only farmers with gross incomes of less than $200,000 would be eligible for aid.

This all makes sense. But in order to get bipartisan support for this new aid formula, liberal groups are demanding new social welfare and environmental programs that could end up replacing one giant waste of money with another. So the Kind-Flake bill provides $6 billion for "conservation programs" and makes payments tied to "environmental performance."

It funds 300,000 new acres of wetlands preservation, a Grasslands Reserve Program, wildlife habitat, and anti-urban-sprawl program designed to wall off "millions of acres of farmland" from development. If there is anything more objectionable than paying farmers to grow food, it's paying them not to grow anything.

The danger is that Congress's agricultural barons -- who favor the status quo, only more so -- will pocket the new subsidies and drop the reform. The bill that passed the House Agriculture Committee recently is a classic in bipartisan logrolling. Messrs. Kind and Flake have a better idea -- and let's hope that in these flush times liberals and conservatives can unite on the House floor to slash subsidies to all but the poorest farmers.


[/ QUOTE ]

Re: The IOWA FARMLAND rush continues on...........
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Farming for Dollars
July 6, 2007; Page A8

As Sisyphean tasks go, a reduction in farm subsidies is the domestic version of Arab-Israeli peace. But as Congress writes another five-year farm bill, we're glad to see that a few brave Members are still willing to give it a try.

And if they ever have chance, it ought to be this year. Farmers have been pocketing about $20 billion a year in taxpayer handouts, even as they enjoy record crop prices. Thanks to the ethanol subsidy boom, corn has hit as high as $4 a bushel, more than double the 2005 price. Yet almost half of all farm subsidies go to corn growers, thanks to the clout of Midwest and Plains-state Senators. The USDA reports that prices for wheat, soybeans and sugar are also at "near-historic highs." Farm incomes are now about 30% higher than the average for all workers. And thanks to a surge in land values, the average net worth of a full time farmer is $830,000.

The (temporarily) historic Freedom to Farm Act, enacted in the mid-1990s, was intended to phase out federal subsidies by the year 2002. But Congress couldn't resist the pressure for annual farm bailouts, and farm payments increased to $23 billion in 2001 from $7 billion in 1996. Then in 2002 Congress reinstated price supports to end these annual bailouts. That didn't work either.

Farmers have received price supports and an annual "emergency" payout every year since 2001. In 2003, drought assistance went to farmers in hundreds of counties where investigators later discovered there was no drought. Farmers in Washington state received earthquake assistance even when their crops weren't damaged. Yet the farm lobby continues to push $7 billion in new "emergency" payouts this year for livestock, milk, fisheries and rural development aid.

The enduring myth is that all of this aid goes to needy family farms. In reality price supports have accelerated the demise of small farms because the benefits go to the most profitable growers. Citizens Against Government Waste has documented that three-quarters of the payments under the 2002 farm bill have gone to the richest 10% of farmers. More than half of the $1.9 billion sugar program lines the pockets of the wealthiest 1% of plantation owners.

Although the law technically limits any single ranch or farm from receiving more than $360,000 in farm subsidies in a year, you can drive a John Deere tractor through the loopholes. In 2003 the biggest single recipient of farm aid was Riceland Foods, in Arkansas, which bagged $69 million, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. Other "farmers" collecting payments include ExxonMobil, Chevron, International Paper and Caterpillar.

The Bush Administration has proposed modest reforms that are worth supporting (see "Washington Harvest" editorial, March 27). But a more ambitious effort is being pushed by an unlikely pair of House Members, Wisconsin Democrat Ron Kind and Arizona Republican Jeff Flake. They'd phase out most direct cash subsidies to farmers and reroute funds into "risk management accounts."

These would be insurance policies that farmers could draw upon in years when their incomes fall unexpectedly. Some of the money for the funds would come from the government, in lieu of subsidies, and some would come from the farmers themselves. Farmers could put up to $8,000 a year tax-free into the accounts, similar to a contribution to an IRA. After 2014 the accounts would become self-financing by the farmers, and government payments would eventually cease.

The Kind-Flake bill would steer tax dollars away from the wealthiest agribusinesses, while funding a safety net for moderate-income farmers facing real financial strain due to bad weather, low prices, or crop failure. Only farmers with gross incomes of less than $200,000 would be eligible for aid.

This all makes sense. But in order to get bipartisan support for this new aid formula, liberal groups are demanding new social welfare and environmental programs that could end up replacing one giant waste of money with another. So the Kind-Flake bill provides $6 billion for "conservation programs" and makes payments tied to "environmental performance."

It funds 300,000 new acres of wetlands preservation, a Grasslands Reserve Program, wildlife habitat, and anti-urban-sprawl program designed to wall off "millions of acres of farmland" from development. If there is anything more objectionable than paying farmers to grow food, it's paying them not to grow anything.

The danger is that Congress's agricultural barons -- who favor the status quo, only more so -- will pocket the new subsidies and drop the reform. The bill that passed the House Agriculture Committee recently is a classic in bipartisan logrolling. Messrs. Kind and Flake have a better idea -- and let's hope that in these flush times liberals and conservatives can unite on the House floor to slash subsidies to all but the poorest farmers.


[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]


link? I'm curious where this came from.

Re: The IOWA FARMLAND rush continues on...........
 

So is our obsession with farm subsidies due primarily to nostalgia? I mean, why isn't farm production being outsourced to the cheap labor like everything else?

Could someone please enlighten me as to what the perceived consequences would be should these subsidies be dropped? Isn't the agriculture industry like 1/20th the size in notional value to that of real estate? And if that is being governed by market forces why shouldn't agriculture?

I just have no real history (save for a few example problems in economics class) with regards to this industry.

Re: The IOWA FARMLAND rush continues on...........
 

It's garbage reporting.......

The farmer must first take a 35 % loss before the disaster aide kiks in ,,then usuly they can pick one year out of three ,, and the other gov payments are for the price the farmer has been getting from the market were so low that without some subsidies you would go hungry ,,how would you like that ?

Re: The IOWA FARMLAND rush continues on...........
 

[ QUOTE ]
It's garbage reporting.......

The farmer must first take a 35 % loss before the disaster aide kiks in ,,then usuly they can pick one year out of three ,, and the other gov payments are for the price the farmer has been getting from the market were so low that without some subsidies you would go hungry ,,how would you like that ?

[/ QUOTE ]

... If I was the American farmer I'd love it. But this argument extends beyond the scope of the farmers. The government isn't set up to aid any sector just because they are ailing. From what I've read, if we got rid of subsidies and allowed the market to govern prices, they would fall dramatically. Good for MAJORITY of country (consumers of ags), bad for MINORITY of country (producers of ags). Now, unless someone can present to me an argument where all of the US gets hurt because farmers go out of business, then I'm going to have to side against subsidies.

Re: The IOWA FARMLAND rush continues on...........
 

[ QUOTE ]
It's garbage reporting.......

The farmer must first take a 35 % loss before the disaster aide kiks in ,,then usuly they can pick one year out of three ,, and the other gov payments are for the price the farmer has been getting from the market were so low that without some subsidies you would go hungry ,,how would you like that ?

[/ QUOTE ]

yes, the wall street journal is typically known for garbage reporting.

Barron