Within the past twenty years, the flow of information has exponentially increased, largely due to advancements in technology and adoption of social media. The speed at which issues are first manifested to when they are noticed on a large scale has increased.
Farmers face challenging market prices in 2019 and diminished (or negative) returns due to costs of production that are not decreasing as rapidly as the projected Iowa crop values this year.
It has been quite wet across a wide swath of the US corn production area this year. Planting progress has been slowed by relatively frequent and relatively heavy rains throughout April and May. Combined with cooler than normal weather in April and May and flooding along a number of rivers in the Midwest, it has been difficult, to say the least, to get corn planted.
Iowa is the number two soybean producer in the country after Illinois. In 2018/19 Iowa produced 565 million bushels of soybeans, which was about 12.4 percent of U.S. soybean production (4.544 billion bushels). U.S. soybean production is mainly destined for crush plants in the domestic market or for exports.
Worldwide, the per capita consumption of fish is increasing. Some of that increase is due to population growth and some growth is due to rising incomes.
In this short article, we look at pure biodiesel production for 2019. Pure or traditional biodiesel is known as Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME). Renewable diesel (also known as Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil or HVO) and FAME often are confused.
Until this marketing year, China had been the main foreign market for U.S. soybeans. However, Brazil has taken the lead as China's main soybean trading partner. The United States percent share of China's total imports increased from 22.1 percent in 2012/13 marketing year (MY) to 36.8 percent in 2016/17, however the share declined to 28.7 percent in 2017/18.
The wet spring of 2019 with rains and flooding has kept many fields unplanted across Iowa. With the final planting dates in the state of May 31 for corn for grain and June 15 for soybeans, the provisions of the Prevented and Late Planting aspects of crop insurance are important considerations for farmers faced with these decisions.
Almost every day you will hear or read information that indicates a significant segment of our population does not understand or appreciate the contribution of agriculture in their lives. How many jobs does agriculture support?
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) published Monthly Biodiesel Production Report on June 28th. In this article, we will conduct a descriptive analysis of pure biodiesel (B100) production and its feedstocks usage back to 2014. EIA reported 152 million gallons pure biodiesel was produced in this April, which was 11 million gallons more compared with March 2019, and 9 million gallons more compared with April 2018.
