ethanol

Farmland: Eye on Iowa

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Land Report Editors

When Warren Buffett talks up farmland, it’s time we all took a look. Buffett made the following statement last month while being interviewed by Becky Quick on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

Tagged with: CNBC, corn, ethanol, farm prices, farmland values, Iowa land, S&P 500, Squawk Box, Warren Buffett
Posted in 2011 Spring, Feature, Magazine, News Desk

Federal Reserve Bullish on Great Plains

Posted on November 20, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

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…

I’m Not a Big Fan of Catfish

Posted on July 18, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

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…

Tagged with: corn ethanol, ethanol, land use policy
Posted in Eric OKeefe, Feature, News Desk

Mexico Opposes Ethanol

Posted on June 30, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

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 Land Market Has Never Been Stronger”

Posted on June 27, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

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.

Tagged with: commodity prices, corn, Eric O'Keefe, ethanol, farmland, soybeans
Posted in Eric OKeefe, Feature, Great Plains, Midwest, News Desk, West

The Rise and Fall of Ethanol

Posted on May 7, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

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…

Tagged with: Bob Dole, Boone Pickens, energy policy, ethanol, public policy, Wall Street Journal
Posted in Eric OKeefe, Feature, News Desk

High Price of Corn Means Less Land for CRP

Posted on May 6, 2008 by Land Report Editors

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…

Tagged with: corn prices, CRP, ethanol, food crisis, public policy
Posted in Conservation, Energy, Farming, Feature, Midwest

The Clean Energy Scam

Posted on April 8, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

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…

Corn Drives Land Prices Higher and Higher

Posted on October 1, 2007 by Eric OKeefe

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…

End of the Conservation Reserve Program?

Posted on April 1, 2007 by Land Report Editors

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,…