In 2023, we witnessed three of the four largest bank failures in US history: First Republic Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank. These high-profile collapses serve as a stark reminder of the importance of maintaining adequate capital ratios and implementing effective risk management practices. Despite these high-profile failures, the banking industry has demonstrated resilience and only 1.4% of total banks are on the FDIC’s Problem Bank List.

With the USDA cancelling its regularly scheduled July cattle inventory report, how big the U.S. cattle herd is is a question that many would like to have answered. Fortunately, historical relationships between changes in prior and subsequent inventories and levels of cow slaughter in between or heifers’ share of cattle on feed offer some indication. Our model incorporating both variables estimates the July 1 U.S. cattle inventory to be 94.2 million head or 1.2% lower than in July 2023.

Large increases have occurred in US Federal Government debt since the financial crisis of 2008 and in Federal interest outlays since 2016. Debate is likely to intensify over what is the appropriate share of current government spending to devote to past government spending through interest payments on the Federal debt. The likelihood of this debate intensifying will encourage forward progress on the farm bill as it raises the potential for constraints and even cuts in farm safety net spending.

Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) is a county-level insurance product that adds a band of coverage over the underlying COMBO crop insurance product up to an 86% coverage level.  Enhanced Coverage…

The coronavirus pandemic created many economic hardships, but a resurgent interest in entrepreneurship remains a positive that emerged from this period. Nationwide, new business applications grew 11.7% annually between 2019 and 2023, with the fastest growth during the period occurring in two small states — Wyoming and Delaware. Only Mississippi, Louisiana, and Vermont had fewer new business applications in 2023 than they did in 2022.

For the year 2023, farm operators enrolled in FBFM owned 24% of the land they farmed, crop shared 27%, and cash rented 48%. There has been a small but continual shift in types of leases from crop share leases to cash rent leases. From 2019 to 2023, the amount of land crop shared decreased from 32% to 27% while the amount of land cash rented increased from 45% to 48%. The last year where a larger amount of the farmland was crop shared compared to cash rented was in 2006.

Successful Farming’s Chuck Abbott reported Thursday that “farmers are on track to harvest some of their largest corn and soybean crops ever, but the ongoing decline in commodity prices is…