2022 Annual Report

January 2023 | By: James Mintert

Letter from the Director

This past year was an exciting one for the Center for Commercial Agriculture. The year started with the 2022 Purdue Top Farmer Conference on January 7th. Purdue was still operating under COVID restrictions at the start of the year so, for the second year in a row, the conference was held virtually by broadcasting from Purdue’s Stewart Center. Over 250 people registered for the conference which featured sessions on storing carbon in agricultural soils, farmland values, strategies to deal with the rise in crop production costs and a keynote presentation by the University of California’s Frank Mitloehner on animal ag’s path to climate neutrality.

The way the Center delivers information continues to evolve with more information being delivered online. The Center’s outlook programming is delivered primarily by a combination of webinars and podcasts with 10 webinars and related podcasts delivered throughout 2022. The Center’s Purdue Commercial AgCast podcast is becoming increasing popular with a total of 39 episodes published during 2022. The Center’s webinars during 2022 had nearly 13,000 registrants and Purdue Commercial AgCast podcasts had nearly 16,000 downloads.

The 2022 Purdue Farm Management Tour was held in Tipton and Clinton Counties, Indiana in mid-July with over 200 producers and agribusiness personnel attending the Tour and early evening Master Farmer reception held at Beck’s Hybrids in Atlanta, Indiana. Thanks to the Henderson, Orr and Stafford families for their willingness to open up their farming operations to visitors and to share their expertise on crop production, farm management strategies, succession planning and facility designs.

MThe Center’s monthly newsletter Commercial AGNews continues to be a great way to stay up-to-date regarding upcoming programming as well as what’s new on the Center’s website with nearly 11,000 subscribers. Social media is also an important way to get information out to users and during 2022 the Center provided over 550 social media posts available on Twitter and Facebook.

As the nation’s only monthly survey of commercial ag producers, the Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer provides insights into producer sentiment while also providing opportunities to learn more about producers’ reactions to contemporaneous events affecting the agricultural sector. Each month during 2022 the Center published an Ag Economy Barometer report summarizing survey results, posted a short YouTube summary video and an in-depth podcast interpretation of the current month’s barometer survey, all accessible via the Center’s website and by subscription. The barometer is widely reported in both the ag and business press and is the subject of a large number of media interviews each month.

Thank you for your interest in and support of the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture. As always, if you have suggestions for future programs or research, or you just want to chat, we’d love to hear from you.