Crop Insurance Basics

Crop Insurance is quite the commodity. It combines insurance (lawyers, accountants, and mathematicians) with government. If that doesn’t sound scary, you’re probably in the minority. That fact aside, crop insurance in the U.S. has actually been designed to help farms cost-effectively manage their production risk. In the process of doing so, crop insurance policies can […]

Grain Marketing Tools

When working on your farm, it’s important to have the right tool and knowledge for the job at hand. There are a variety of tools available for the job of implementing your grain marketing plan. These tools will provide you with a variety of ways to interact with the cash and futures market. This graphic […]

Understanding Basis in Grain Marketing

What is Basis? When you sell a load of grain locally, you receive a price that is different from the futures price. This difference is termed ‘basis’. Basis is simply the difference in value between what the futures market says a bushel of grain is worth and what a buyer will pay for that bushel […]

Defining Cash and Futures Markets

When you are developing a grain marketing plan, it is important to ensure that you have all of the information you need to make the best decision possible. Information from the cash and futures markets will provide you with the numbers from which to base your grain marketing decision making. This article will provide you […]

Overview of dairy sector trends and implications

This update aims to provide stakeholders with a comprehensive overview of the current market conditions, facilitating informed decision-making in the dairy sector.

Developing a Grain Marketing Plan

There are four major steps in developing your grain marketing plan. Step 1: Determine expected crop production and cost of production As the first step in developing your marketing plan, you should detail the basic information about the crop to be marketed, including the expected crop production. The proportion of expected production or expected crop […]

Identifying Factors of a Grain Marketing Plan

There are four major factors that influence a grain marketing plan. These are personal feelings and attitudes about marketing, the financial needs of the farm business, seasonal price patterns, and the current price outlook. Personal feelings and attitudes about marketing The first factor is your personal feelings and attitudes about marketing. Each farmer will differ […]

Defining a Grain Marketing Plan

Most farmers develop excellent crop production plans each year, including strategies for weed control, fertilization, tillage, and match these practices with financial resources. A grain marketing plan identifies a farmer’s specific price objectives as the production and/or storage season progresses. The marketing plan identifies strategies available to achieve the specific price objectives. Like successful production […]

Fixed vs Variable Costs of Farming

Fixed costs are those expenses that occur regardless if we grow a crop or not. Variable costs are those cash expenses needed to grow, harvest and store a crop

Using the Crop Enterprise Budget Tool

The Crop Enterprise Budget Tool spreadsheet developed by the Division of Extension at UW-Madison provides a straightforward method to arrive at a cost of production for crops on a per acre and per bushel basis.

Terminating a farmland lease or tenancy

It is important to consider how and when a farmland lease may end. State law provides default rules for termination in the event that a landlord and tenant fail to discuss and document this topic.

Negotiating the Farmland Lease

Like any contract, a lease is a package deal. Landlords and tenants should carefully consider all of the terms offered by the other party before making a decision.

Is my Wisconsin farm lease enforceable?

Under Wisconsin law, a “lease” means an agreement, whether oral or written, for transfer of possession of real property, or both real and personal property, for a definite period of time. These leases are also a type of contract, so principles of contract law apply too.

2024 Dairy markets waiting on demand

The All Milk price and Class III milk prices have shown a modest start in the early months of 2024. Prices have not reached the lows of 2023; the most noteworthy development has been the robustness of Class IV prices, bolstered by strong butter prices.

Wisconsin Farming: Insights from the 2022 Census of Agriculture

Every five years the USDA undertakes a detailed inventory of farming operations across the country. The most recent 2022 Census of Agriculture provides a snapshot of the nation’s farming economy, including demographics, production practices, land use, and economic trends.