Federal Reserve Bullish on Great Plains
November 20, 2008 by Eric OKeefe
Filed under Cattle, Eric OKeefe, Farming, Feature, Field Reporters, Great Plains, Public Land, Regional News, Southwest

Farmland in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and parts of New Mexico jumped 20 percent in the third quarter of 2008, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City this week. Here are some of the reasons why. Read more
I’m Not a Big Fan of Catfish
July 18, 2008 by Eric OKeefe
Filed under Eric OKeefe, Feature, Field Reporters
But I’ve been meaning to reference this article that ran in The New York Times on July 18. It’s yet another example of the effects of the federal government’s mindless ethanol policy. Now, in addition to driving up basic food costs for Americans (and Mexicans), besides sending soybean production overseas, and as well as bankrupting feedlot operators and more than a few cattlemen on both sides of the border, the high prices of corn and soybeans have all but dried up commercial catfish farms in the Mississippi Delta. It’s one of the countless unforeseen consequences of a land use policy that is already beginning to unravel.
Mexico Opposes Ethanol
June 30, 2008 by Eric OKeefe
Filed under Energy, Eric OKeefe, Farming, Feature, Federal Policy, Field Reporters, International, Southwest

As we’ve seen over the last few months, skyrocketing commodity prices are pushing land values to record levels. They are also squeezing cattlemen and other producers who rely on corn and other grains to fatten livestock and poultry. One of the loudest voices protesting this trend has been Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who petitioned the EPA to grant a 50 percent waiver on the 9 billion gallon corn-based Renewable Fuel Standard. Now another vocal opponent of ethanol has emerged: south of the border. Read more
“The Land Market Has Never Been Stronger”
June 27, 2008 by Eric OKeefe
Filed under Eric OKeefe, Feature, Field Reporters, Great Plains, Midwest, West
So says Mac Boyd, a broker at Farmers National in Arcola, Illinois. Boyd is just one of the many veteran real estate professionals who are closely monitoring the strongest farmland market in decades. Read more
The Rise and Fall of Ethanol
May 7, 2008 by Eric OKeefe
Filed under Eric OKeefe, Feature, Field Reporters
One of the more telling anecdotes about ethanol comes from Boone Pickens. It’s always an eye-opener to listen to this master raconteur discuss energy and politics. Last month I heard him tell an audience at Georgetown University about a sit-down he had in Washington in the late 1980s. Read more
Low Food Levels, High Corn Prices Mean Less Land for CRP
May 6, 2008 by Grant Gannon
Filed under Conservation, Energy, Farming, Feature, Grant Gannon, Midwest
Driving today I tuned into C-SPAN Radio on my XM dial looking for something better than the latest Top 20. I caught the tail end of a conversation, Congressional testimony it sounded like, regarding the current food crisis that is plaguing the United States and the rest of the world. The discussion centered on a program and its effects on those prices. Read more
West Texas – A Seller’s Market
April 27, 2008 by Grant Gannon
Filed under Field Reporters, Grant Gannon, Regional News, Southwest
More than 260,000 square miles make up Texas, providing a diverse and constantly changing landscape. The real estate market in the Lone Star State is equally diverse. Land prices in South Texas have risen in recent years as hunters flock to the area scooping up property in the name of sport. Read more
The Clean Energy Scam
April 8, 2008 by Eric OKeefe
Filed under Eric OKeefe, Feature, Field Reporters, Midwest
Amazing new diets, intriguing self-help books, a daily dose of St. John’s Wort – we are a country obsessed with quick fixes. Now, as Time points out in this cover story titled The Clean Energy Myth, we can add ethanol to our national wish list. Read more
Corn Drives Land Prices Higher and Higher
October 1, 2007 by Eric OKeefe
Filed under Eric OKeefe, Farming, Feature, Field Reporters, Great Lakes, July 2007, Magazine, Midwest, Regional News, Topics
It’s official. The New York Times proclaimed in August that the market for Midwestern farmland was “hot,” a declaration akin to labeling Hurricane Katrina “dangerous” two weeks after it devastated the Gulf Coast. Anyone remotely familiar with the Corn Belt knows that rural land prices have skyrocketed for several years. Here’s a rundown of some recent figures. Read more
End of the Conservation Reserve Program?
April 1, 2007 by Joseph Guinto
Filed under April 2007, Conservation, Energy, Farming, Feature, Federal Policy, Field Reporters, Hunting, Joseph Guinto, Magazine, Midwest, Public Land, Recreation, Topics
BY JOSEPH GUINTO
PUBLISHED APRIL 2007
With the Bush administration backing off on the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), conservation and hunting groups fear the 22-year-old program once dubbed “Noah’s Arc for Wildlife” is a sinking ship.
Backers of the CRP, which pays farmers to plant soil-conserving grass and trees on land they might otherwise farm, call the program a boon to hunters, saying it has created millions of acres of new grasslands while dramatically increasing game bird populations.
But with demand for ethanol surging, corn prices more than doubling since 2005, the USDA is reducing the scope of the program. No new CRP contracts will be offered in the next two years, and the USDA is considering allowing some farmers to cancel existing contracts. That’s a bad idea, says Rob Olson, president of Delta Waterfowl, a North Dakota group that promotes conservation of waterfowl and hunter’s rights. Olson says changing the program could remove 28 million acres of the current 36 million acres in CRP by 2010. And, he argues, that CRP acreage isn’t even the best land to develop for corn production.
“It would be a mistake to start plowing these fragile soils,” Olson says.









