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Firm markets biodiesel for homes
A major distributor of heating
oil and diesel has started marketing "biodiesel" for home heating
use, spurred by a new federal tax credit aimed at promoting alternative fuels.
Fred M. Schildwachter & Sons, the first New York-area terminal to market biodiesel for trucks, is offering the same fuel—a blend of 80 percent diesel and 20 percent soybean oil—to its home heating customers.
The move gives heating oil consumers a means to lower their
output of sulfur and other harmful emissions. If it catches on, the use
of biodiesel could go a long way to ease the periodic supply tightness in
the Northeast, the nation's main heating oil market.
Source: DTN AgDaily News; Jan. 5, 2005
Chinese government
confiscates farmland
Farmers in China are second-class citizens as city and regional governments confiscate land for urban sprawl and development with little compensation. City residents can now buy and sell apartments or villas whereas farmers still are part of the collective farming system that forbids them from owning, buying or selling the land they till.
An estimated 70 million Chinese farmers have lost their land in the past decade, and the number is rapidly escalating. Once they are kicked off the land they have been tilling, these farmers have little choice but to try and find industrial jobs. Several riots and protests during 2004 have been related to farm land seizures, reports the New York Times.
Source: AFBF; Executive Newswatch; Dec. 22, 2004
Land values
overheated?
Land prices climbed dramatically in 2004, reaching new all-time highs in most areas.
The annual farmland price survey from Iowa State University (ISU) exemplifies the increases. According to the ISU data, the average price for Iowa farmland surged 15.6 percent to $2,629 per acre. During the land boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Iowa average peaked at $2,147 per acre before plunging to $787 by 1986. With this year's large gains, Iowa land prices have more than tripled since 1986.
Are land values getting overheated? Possibly. It will certainly be difficult to maintain the sizzling gains of recent years in the face of sharply lower crop prices. ISU looks for land prices to stabilize in the next year or two, but a repeat of the 1980's bust is not likely.
The prospect of higher interest rates, along with the potential cuts in farm program spending, may begin to cool the market. However, land prices will remain well supported by high crop yields, economic pressure to expand, tax-deferred exchanges, growing global grain demand and the weak U.S. dollar.
Investor demand is strong, accounting for 38 percent of last year's land purchases in Iowa, more than double the level of the early 1990s.
Source: Doane's Agricultural Report;
Vol. 67, No. 51-1; Dec. 31, 2004
The Eastern Mushroom Marketing Cooperative's 19 members allegedly purchased nonmember mushroom farms and then resold the operations with deed restrictions prohibiting any business activity related to growing mushrooms. The defendants were quoted as calling their actions a "supply control" campaign.
The Justice Department filed the antitrust court case because it contended the EMMC members controlled 60 percent, or $425 million, of mushroom sales in the U.S. in 2001-2002 while also restricting competition. A 60-day public comment period to the settlement is currently in effect.
Source: AFBF; Executive Newswatch; Dec. 20, 2004
While mainly showcasing criticisms of the program, the Times acknowledged farm groups who say that subsidies provide for a stable food supply, while ensuring "that major sectors of American agriculture will be competitive in the global market."
According to AFBF Chief Economist Bob Young, who was quoted in the article, "when people ask me what the justification for this is, I point out that in nearly every country in the world you find government involved in the food supply."
The article can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/national/26farm.html.
Source: AFBF; Executive Newswatch; Dec. 27, 2004
