Today’s Harvest Blog

The Farm Bill has been bogged down since the Fall while Congress has battled over funding the government. Given it’s an election year, Congressional leaders have acknowledged if the Farm Bill isn’t passed by mid-year, it will likely be extended for another year leaving it for the next Congress to complete. Several Farm Credit backed proposals have been introduced this Congress that would allow Farm Credit to lean into meeting the capital needs of rural America. The intent is for these “marker bills” to be included in the Farm Bill. Here is a summary of four of them.

According to the USAppleTracker monthly storage report, November holdings were 191 million bushels – an all-time high, eclipsing the mark set during the 2014/15 season. What does this mean for the 2024 season? Farm Credit East recently hosted a webinar with Chris Gerlach, USApple’s Director of Industry Analytics, to find out.

As dairy producers know all too well, the dairy industry is prone to significant volatility and risk. Fluctuations in milk prices, feed costs and other factors can wreak havoc on profit margins. Fortunately, there are two important risk management tools available to dairy operations, Dairy Margin Coverage and Dairy Revenue Protection.

Dr. Bob Maltsbarger, Senior Research Economist with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, gives his insights on the state of the cash grain and oilseed industries for 2024, including U.S. production, supply and demand trends, competition from other countries, weather-related market fluctuations, and other industry related conditions in this year's industry outlook report.