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Reducing Soybean Production Costs

March 9, 2016

Purdue Agronomy’s Shaun Casteel and Jim Mintert discuss with Hoosier Ag Today’s Gary Truitt how using soybean seeding rates based…

Stress Testing Financial Performance

March 4, 2016

Stress testing describes a range of techniques that can be used to access the vulnerability of a firm’s balance sheet and income statement to changes in prices, production, or financing. Stress testing can be an extremely useful tool when evaluating strategies for dealing with lower prices, higher costs, asset purchases, and changes in loan terms.

2016 Crop Cost and Return Guide

March 1, 2016

The Purdue Crop Cost and Return Guide offers farmers a resource to project financials for the coming cropping year. These are the March 2016 crop budget estimations.

Making Your 2016 Crop Insurance Decisions

March 1, 2016

Recorded March 1, 2016 | A review of the 2016 crop insurance alternatives and provide suggestions with respect to crop insurance selections that farmers should consider using in 2016.

Robust Beef Expansion Will Slow

February 13, 2016

Nothing like record cattle prices and profitability to get an industry excited about expansion. The latest USDA Cattle report shows a rapid expansion is underway with cattle and calf numbers up three percent and beef cow numbers up four percent in the past year.

Pork Industry – A Little Profit for 2016

February 13, 2016

The outlook for the pork industry has turned somewhat more optimistic in recent weeks. The sources of that optimism include a $2 to $4 increase in spring and summer lean hog futures prices since the first of the year and slightly lower new-crop soybean meal prices. A bit higher hog prices and a little lower cost add to the potential for a profitable year.

Leverage and Interest Rate Risk

February 12, 2016

Financial risk is incurred when a farm borrows money to purchase assets or operate the farm. Financial risk is caused by uncertainty pertaining to interest rates, lending relationships, changes in market value of assets used as collateral, and cash flow used to repay debt.

Leverage and Financial Risk

February 12, 2016

Financial risk is incurred when a farm borrows money to purchase assets or operate the farm. Financial risk is caused by uncertainty pertaining to interest rates, lending relationships, changes in market value of assets used as collateral, and cash flow used to repay debt.

Balancing Business and Financial Risk

February 12, 2016

Total risk can be divided into two major categories: business risk and financial risk. Business risk involves the variability of the farm’s return to assets. Business risk arises from variability in production levels (e.g., yield variability), output prices (e.g., corn price variability), and input prices (e.g., fertilizer price variability), as well as changes in legal aspects of the business and personnel.