MANAGEMENT

I have been in this business for over 50 years and, other than the mid-’80s, when land (due to an agricultural economic financial crisis) had to be sold through foreclosure, most land sells because multiple family members have inherited the land and, due to various reasons, opt to sell the farm.

The last four years, I’ve served as the director of the USDA U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center (USDFRC) in Madison, Wisconsin.

In a white paper co-authored by HighQuest Partners and Julie Koeninger (2017), the authors summarize in their opening sentence, “Over the past three decades, farmland investing has grown exponentially from a ‘niche’ investment dominated by a few large pension plans and insurance companies to a mainstream institutional real asset class that increasingly can be accessed by retail-oriented investors.”

This project received 2017 funding from the U.S. Alfalfa Farmer Research Initiative (aka Alfalfa Checkoff). Brandon Schlautman is the lead researcher from The Land Institute on this project. Email Brandon Schlautman. 

As we enter winter and begin to think about spring, it may be the time of year when many of you check fence conditions to keep livestock in or out of neighboring fields.

Each bale of hay contains mineral nutrients that come from soil reserves or from applied fertilizer. When fed to livestock, most of these nutrients will pass through the animals and can by recycled for future forage growth.