Journal Issue:
Agricultural Policy Review: Volume 2022, Issue 1
Agricultural Policy Review: Volume 2022, Issue 1
Volume
Number
Winter 2022
Issue Date
2022
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Journal Volume
Journal Volume
Articles
Publication
Fertilizer Markets: The Clash between Energy, Ag, Weather, Profits, and Policy
(
2022)
Over the past 18 months, many prices have been on the rise. The general economy is facing its first significant bout with inflation in roughly 20 years. Agricultural commodity prices are high, with crop prices doubling over the time frame. While agricultural producers have enjoyed increased revenues with the boosted prices, they are now also facing increasing costs as the prices for agricultural inputs rise—agricultural land values (and cash rents) have soared and herbicide and pesticide costs have increased. However, the agricultural input with the most dramatic price rise has been fertilizer. US agriculture relies on a strong base of row crop production, with corn being the leading crop. To produce the high yields required to match global demand for corn, US corn production is highly dependent on fertilizer, including nitrogen, which is an essential nutrient for growing corn. Recently, anhydrous ammonia prices increased substantially, from $290 per ton in June 2020 to $1,350–$1,375 per ton in January 2022.
Publication
Utility-scale Wind and Solar Development in Iowa: Trends, Prospects, and the Land Factor
(
2022)
In 2020, Iowa ranked first in the United States for percentage of state electricity produced by wind energy, which supplied 57% of the state’s net electricity generation (IUB 2022). Conversely, in 2020, solar energy had a limited role in Iowa’s electricity generation, supplying less than 0.04% of the state’s net electricity generation (IUB 2022), which ranked 43rd in the United States.
In this article, we investigate the stark development and generation disparities between wind and solar energy in Iowa. We focus on utility-scale power plants only, meaning that compiled data applies to power plants that have a relatively large nameplate capacity (one megawatt (MW) is often used as a cut-off value).
Publication
What’s in Store for Voluntary Agricultural Carbon Markets?
(
2022)
Consumers and investors are putting increased pressure on corporations, governments, and other entities to reduce their environmental footprint. A recent article in Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy by Wongpiyabovorn, Plastina, and Crespi (2022) examines this issue. An increasing number of companies and governments are pledging to become carbon neutral or carbon negative over the next few decades. Until the technologies to achieve those goals become available at reasonable costs, a pathway to reducing overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the production, transportation, consumption, and disposal of goods and services is to purchase carbon credits in the voluntary market and use them to offset emissions.
Publication
Farm Succession and Retirement across Continents and Cultures: A Focus on Ireland and Iowa
(
2022)
Overcoming the farming community’s stalwart persistent adherence to traditional succession and retirement practices, which effectively obstructs farmland transfer to the next generation, is a pressing matter for contemporary generational renewal in agriculture policy (Dwyer et al. 2019). Extensive research from the Republic of Ireland by Conway et al. (2016; 2017; 2018; 2019; 2020; 2021) highlights an excessive preoccupation with financial incentives encouraging the process, however, with limited value placed on how painful it is for older farmers ‘let go’ of their farms and their ingrained productivist self-image in later life. US research finds that in many cases, older farmers’ sense of place and purpose attached to family farms supersedes economic imperatives stimulating farm transfer to the next generation, which indicates the overwhelming significance of lifestyle over profit (Kirkpatrick 2012; 2013). However, such sentiments have gone unnoticed over the past four decades as there has been little focus on the needs and requirements of older farmers within policy/academic discussion, even though this cohort ultimately have the power and resources to decide whether intergenerational farm transition takes place (Commins 1973; Conway et al. 2017; Leonard et al. 2017).
This study draws on a baseline analysis of International FARMTRANSFERS Survey data obtained from the Republic of Ireland and the US state of Iowa to identify and compare rates and patterns of succession and older farmers’ similarities and/or differences in attitudes and intentions towards retirement. The FARMTRANSFERS project is an international collaborative effort around a common research instrument that “yields a range of (largely quantitative) data relating to the pattern, process and speed of succession and retirement which provides a firm base for future inquiries utilizing different methodologies” (Lobley and Baker 2012, p. 15). The survey, based on an original design by Errington and Tranter (1991), has now been replicated in 12 countries (see figure 1) and eight US states (see figure 2) and completed by almost 17,000 farmers worldwide.
Publication
Will the Soaring Farmland Market Drop When the Federal Reserve Raises Interest Rates?
(
2022)
The Iowa and Midwest farmland markets have seen tremendous momentum over the past 18 months. Both the Iowa Land Value Survey and the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank’s AgLetter show that average farmland values in Iowa rose 30% last year to the highest nominal values since the 1940s (Zhang 2021; Oppedahl 2022). At the same time, concerns about the sustainability of high land prices and possible changes in interest rates were the second- and third-most frequently mentioned negative factors in the 2021 Iowa Land Value Survey. In late March, the Federal Reserve Bank is expected to impose the first interest rate hike in three years, which will likely be the start of six-to-seven interest rate hikes over the next two years. This article examines the potential impacts of the future interest rate hikes on the farmland market.