Industry News & Outlooks

May 20, 2025

Terrain analysts dissect news topics important to agriculture and weigh their significance for the sectors relevant to our Farm Credit customers. In this issue, our analysts

May 17, 2025

Key points: Representing more than 20% of U.S. agricultural exports, California stands to benefit from efforts to narrow the trade gap. The rising cost of regulations

May 17, 2025

Key points: Bank deposits have grown at lower levels in areas with declining populations. In partnership with traditional agricultural lenders, alternative capital pools and consolidated lending

May 17, 2025

Key points: Cattle producers, on the upswing in profitability, have taken a conservative approach, so far, to herd expansion and other investment in their operations. Crop

May 17, 2025

In This Issue: High regulatory costs limit California farmers’ ability to expand specialty crop production. Financial stress continues to build for Midwestern field crop and hog

May 15, 2025

Current Conditions & Pre-Report Expectations Planting season across the United States remains ahead of schedule for both corn and soybeans. As of May 11, 2025, U.S.

May 12, 2025

Temporary Sense of Relief for Crop Farmers It’s no secret that row crop producers have faced stiff economic headwinds in recent years. After rising sharply in

May 6, 2025

Situation Since 2017, the United Nations has revised its global fertility and population projections downward. Initially, in 2017, the organization projected that the global population would

May 1, 2025

Situation: The U.S. dairy export industry is experiencing a shift in product demands by key export destinations, with aging populations, slowing population growth and maturing economies.

April 24, 2025

Situation: Digester construction has boomed thanks to lucrative credits and tax incentives for converting biomethane into renewable natural gas. Now some of those tax incentives are

April 24, 2025

Situation Opinions on bloom have been varied, with some noting mostly dry conditions while others are focusing on the sporadic rain and hail the Central Valley

April 24, 2025

After a quarter with all-time record-high prices for all weight classes of cattle and the annual Cattle Inventory report confirming that liquidation continued in all classes

April 24, 2025

Farmers should stay patient and disciplined. Patient for old crop: I expect continued price rallies for old-crop corn driven by export sales strength and tight global

April 24, 2025

Milk production maintained a sideways trajectory in 2024, finishing the year slightly below 2023. Dairy markets are starting 2025 in reasonably good shape, well positioned for

April 24, 2025

Sow Slaughter Trends Change With the Calendar Sow slaughter trends since the December USDA Hogs and Pigs report changed dramatically. Slaughter was 7% larger than a

April 24, 2025

Background: The market has been unkind to sorghum. Crop year to date through February, exports to China are 70% behind the five-year average pace. And while

April 24, 2025

Headed into the 2025 growing season, there are two big, unanswered questions for the soybean market: How many acres will be planted? How many U.S. soybeans

April 24, 2025

High interest rates make the prospect of holding more inventory more costly, leading to lower contracted tonnage. Situation The first report released each year for California’s

April 24, 2025

Background The U.S. wheat industry is stuck at “average.” Relative to the 15-year average: The old-crop 2024/25 U.S. stocks-to-use ratio is only 2% higher The amount