Minding Ag's Business

Two machine-learning models that incorporate large amounts of data produce two very different corn yield estimates, and it's a good reminder that in all crop estimates, the recipe is in the soup.

Smaller-than-expected corn stocks at the end of the 2018-19 marketing year puts the spotlight on the residual's role in USDA's supply and demand balance sheet.

Farmers aren't the only ones being tested by this year's weather; satellite-driven yield models will have to prove they've accounted for all the variables that influence yield.

The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers may be conducting its 30th annual event this year, but the lessons it's taught have already spanned generations.

Attention to three areas can help keep people on the same page and prevent deeper conflicts from tearing the fabric of family relationships.

Effective transitions require more than planning.

Some management scenarios call for saying more, not less.

Nebraska farmland values declined 3% over the past year, extending a 5-year slide.

As the trade negotiations with China stall, something I heard last summer sounds truer than ever: U.S. tariffs are playing into China's long-term strategy for food security.

Adjustments to business plans should be made sooner rather than later.

In 2018, 37% of Kansas farmers' income came from Market Facilitation Program payments. As the trade conflict with China escalates, rather than resolves, farmers are left to wonder whether the government will intervene again and what form that will take.

Almost every expansion of acreage, new business enterprise or new investment has challenges and requires more management skills and knowledge. Your intuition is valuable, but so is the advice and counsel of people who have been through similar trials.

Here are five practices you can implement with relatively low cost and investment of time to help keep an employee engaged.

Here are some tips on what farmers coping with disasters should discuss with their lenders.

Engaging employees needs more than a scattershot approach. If some employees are actively disengaged, a methodical approach would be better. Here are six questions you can ask employees to get feedback and to gain a sense of each one's engagement to the business.

Rising costs aren't the only uncertainty complicating farmers' health care choices. The future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, is once again under legal challenge, and new types of plans are beginning to proliferate.

While commercial banks and Farm Credit system lenders hold nearly equal shares of farm debt, banks hold more non-real estate debt, exposing them to greater risks if the farm economy continues to flounder.

Predicting the future is, inherently, unpredictable. But late last year, Virginia Tech professor emeritus David Kohl shared what's on his radar for 2019.

Iowa State University's Land Value Survey shows average farmland prices declined 0.8% to $7,264 per acre from 2017 to 2018. While it's the fourth decline in five years, farmland values are still higher than they were a decade ago.

Over the past month, I've attended a number of agricultural conferences, and one theme connected all of them: savvy financial management is the key to not only making it through this down cycle in agriculture, but making sure your business thrives well into the future.