The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Monsanto in the case of Bowman v. Monsanto, saying, “Patent exhaustion does not permit a farmer to reproduce patented seeds through planting and harvesting without the patent holder’s permission.”...More

On May 10, the House Ag Committee marked up their version of the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act (FARRM) Act of 2013. It is nearly identical to the bill marked up last summer....More

Corn production for 2013-2014 is projected at 14.1 billion bushels, up 3.4 billion from 2012-2013. Soybean production is projected at a record 3.390 billion bushels, up 375 million from the drought-reduced 2012 crop on slightly higher harvested area and higher yields. Corn prices and soybean prices are both projected down from highs last season....More

With the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act, the era of direct payments is over. Instead of subsidies that pay out every year even in good times, the bill creates risk management tools that support farmers when they are negatively impacted by weather disaster or market events beyond their control....More

Although challenges to planting the 2013 crop may provide some degree of support to corn and soybean prices, they have quickly faded from the 2012 highs and are threatening to diminish further from the highs that began in 2007....More

Farm Bill markup likely will begin soon in both the Senate and House Agricultural committees. Much of the focus for traditional program crops will be around three programs: a revenue program, a target price program and a supplemental crop insurance program. While the exact nature of the programs will depend on negotiations, what is almost certain is that the programs' rationale will be risk management. Given a risk management focus, farm bill negotiations will need to debate and somehow resolve the following seven questions....More

A new peer-reviewed work has been published (April 2013) that outlines some significant global economic and environmental benefits of genetically modified (GM) crops. Agricultural entomologist Mike Gray, University of Illinois, has conducted western corn rootworm research for many years and was particularly interested in the overall U.S. farm income gain attributed to corn rootworm Bt hybrids – $7.1 billion cumulative benefits since 2003....More