Wall Street investment firms are once again putting money into farmland. Institutional investors are buying up farmland as farmers, who would normally be competing for the land, are hanging on to their cash. This investment money can mean different things for local ag communities. Some institutions will purchase land and lease it back to a farmer, who can then continue to operate. Brian Wise, the Director of Acquisitions for U.S. Agriculture of Indiana, says deals like that are standard practice for his company. This is good news for agribusinesses in the area as the farmer’s business relationships with those retailers can stay intact. However, if a farmer’s financial records and position are less than solid, firms often choose to rent to another producer. Investment firms have been known to make very large purchases of land. Denver-based Farmland Partners, Inc., bought more than 8,600 acres of land in Illinois at a cost of $55.3 million. However, firms own less than one percent of the $2.5 trillion land market in the U.S. Farmers or their families own or control 61 percent of the 91 million acres in U.S. farms.

The bi-monthly Farm Journal Pulse Survey recently asked farmers a simple question: “Do you think the U.S. should withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement?” About one-third of the nearly 900 responses were positive. Producers who voted for getting rid of the agreement did so because they believe the Ag economy would be better off without the trade deal or because they believe the U.S. can negotiate better deals individually with Canada and Mexico. At the other end of the spectrum, 40 percent said no to withdrawing, saying that NAFTA is crucial to U.S. farmers and to maintaining a low-cost food supply. A quarter of the respondents said they’re still not sure if it’s necessary to keep or eliminate the 24-year-old trade pact with Mexico and Canada. The varied responses are similar to the responses and positions of different ag trade groups, agribusinesses, and associations. While U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is concerned about what he calls a “lack of headway,” trade officials from Canada and Mexico are still moderately optimistic a new NAFTA deal can get done by March of 2018.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says domestic red meat, beef, and pork production all hit new monthly highs in November. In fact, for the first 11 months of 2017, red meat production is three percent ahead of last year’s record pace, totaling 47.571 billion pounds so far this year. Year-to-year beef production is four percent higher and pork production is three percent higher than last year. Beef production was at 2.29 billion pounds in November, two percent higher than November of 2016. A three percent increase in November slaughter to 2.761 million head canceled out an 11-pound decrease in the average live-weight to 1,373 per head. November pork production totaled 2.245 billion pounds, a slight increase this year. The November kill decreased one percent to 10.55 million head and the average live-weight was three pounds higher than last year, coming in at 286 pounds. Overall, November red meat production was one percent higher than last year at 4.535 billion pounds.

Industry experts are scratching their heads over the relatively high price of farmland while commodity prices are still low. The two factors often have a strong correlation between each other. Farm Futures Dot Com quotes Steve Bruere, President of the land-brokerage firm Peoples Co. of Iowa as saying, “Strong farmland values defy logic in a lot of ways.” He says the fact that there aren’t a lot of farms for sale may be at least partially responsible for keeping prices high. As of November, there were only 150 farms for sale in Iowa, which is considered a low number, less than two farms per county. Randy Dickhut, a senior vice president with Farmers National Co., says, “Farmland values have dropped in many areas but not as far as some think they could.” He says it would take a “perfect storm” of circumstances for prices to head lower, including crop insurance adjustments, negative changes to tax policy, and mishandled trade policy opportunities. For now, he says drastically lower prices are not likely to happen anytime soon. “We’ve seen mostly stable prices so far,” Dickhut adds, “and there’s interest in buying land out there with a relatively low supply.” He did say that low commodity prices may continue to apply short-term pressure to land prices.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz made a recent proposal to cap the cost of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) as a way to control the cost for refiners that blend renewable fuels into the nation’s gasoline supply. A DTN report says capping the cost of RINs at ten cents each would basically all but eliminate the Renewable Fuels Standard mandate for biodiesel and would likely hurt the nation’s ethanol industry. That analysis comes from farmdoc at the University of Illinois. The Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois also says the cap would likely violate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s RFS Waiver Authority as well. Farmdoc says any biodiesel price below $2.64 a gallon would lead to no biodiesel blending, making a ten-cent cap unfeasible. Additionally, a ten-cent cap would be like waiving the biomass-based diesel mandate down to zero and would push the ethanol mandate back down to the E-10 blend wall level. Cruz offered the proposal on behalf of oil refiners, which prompted the ethanol industry to send a letter to the Trump Administration to educate them on how RINs work. RINs are generated when a qualifying renewable fuel is produced domestically or imported. A refinery then buys RINs when it’s not producing or buying enough biofuels to meet its blending obligations.