News

K-State risk management specialist Jenny Ifft talks about finalizing crop insurance decisions for spring-planted crops, with the enrollment deadline coming up in just over a week...she talks about how the just-released RMA price numbers for February will influence the revenue insurance guarantee.

K-State agricultural economists Nathan Hendricks and Gabe Sampson report on their new analysis of the value of groundwater in the High Plains Aquifer region...they used land transaction data and cropland rental rate trends to determine the economic importance of those groundwater resources to Kansas agriculture...they also looked at the impact of changes in the aquifer's water level on farmland values in the region.

K-State agricultural economist Robin Reid announces that the new Kansas Land Values Book from K-State is now out:  based on actual land sales data, this annual report is a thorough portrayal of Kansas farm and ranch land value trends at the county, region and state levels...she goes over the land sales volumes and average prices paid for agricultural ground in 2021.

Risk management specialist Jenny Ifft and crop nutrient specialist Dorivar Ruiz-Diaz of K-State talk about new crop insurance add-on coverage of post-planting nitrogen applications to dryland corn, which will be available on a pilot basis in 10 northeast Kansas counties this year...they explain why this insurance option has been developed, saying it may be the first of several "targeted" crop insurance endorsements for specific production practices. 

K-State farm management economist Gregg Ibendahl shares his just-posted fertilizer price outlook, using current trends in corn and oil prices as the foundation for his analysis...he thinks that the price of fertilizer might level off midway through the year, but that a rapid retreat in that price isn't likely, especially given what's happening with inflation in the economy.

K-State agricultural economist Jenny Ifft launches a multi-part series on price risk management in cow-calf production, and the assorted tools available to producers to successfully navigate that risk...and K-State agricultural economist Robin Reid follows up with the details on a special workshop on this topic that will be held at 29 locations around Kansas later this month.

Agricultural economist Jisang Yu and statistician Gyuhyeong Goh talk about a novel approach they've developed for gauging the direct relationship of temperature extremes to crop production losses...they used USDA crop insurance data and a statistical variable selection model to measure those impacts on tree crops, and plan to apply this informative analytical tool to conventional field crops as well.

The director of the Arthur Capper Cooperative Center at K-State, Brian Briggeman, digs into a new analysis his center just finished, which looked at the soaring fertilizer price situation and how it's affecting the financial state of farm cooperatives. He talks about the data he used from the last time fertilizer prices spiked, and then plummeted, in the late 2000s as a benchmark for assessing the current financial vulnerability of various-sized cooperatives.