Posts in American Farm Bureau
Sustainability Markets, Part 2: Common Land-Use Practices Under Consideration for Conservation Adoption

This Market Intel article is the second in a five-part series highlighting agricultural ecosystem credit markets and the opportunities and challenges they present farmers, as well as the policy levers and many other factors involved. The first article, Sustainability Markets, Part 1: Agricultural Ecosystem Credit Markets – The Primer, provided a primer on agricultural ecosystem credit markets, how the markets are developing and operating and who is behind them and why.

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Sustainability Markets, Part 1: Agricultural Ecosystem Credit Markets – The Primer

This Market Intel article is the first in a five-part series highlighting agricultural ecosystem credit markets and the opportunities and challenges they present farmers, as well as the policy levers and many other factors involved.

This article provides a primer on agriculture ecosystem credit markets. With so many emerging ideas and platforms, it’s important to explore how these markets are developing and operating, as well as who is behind them and why.

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Crop Insurance Guarantees Soar

What a difference a year makes. In 2020, the spring crop insurance prices for corn, soybeans and cotton were near the lowest levels of the last decade. Now, on the back of strong export demand from China and smaller-than-anticipated old-crop inventories, crop insurance prices have experienced the largest year-over-year increase in more than a decade, helping to boost insurance protection for farmers as they prepare for the planting season.

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The 2021 AEWR Finally Revealed

With the release of USDA’s Farm Labor Survey on February 11, farmers that utilize the H-2A program finally know the minimum wage they must pay their H-2A workers in 2021. Usually, this wage rate, known as the Adverse Effect Wage Rate, is known when the Farm Labor Survey is released in November, but changes in policy that were proposed and then struck down in the courts over the last four months delayed the Farm Labor Survey’s release, which in turn held up the AEWR announcement. The FLS reveals an average increase of $0.63 per hour, or 4.5%, from 2020 to 2021, though there are considerable regional differences.

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Reviewing US Carbon Sequestration

The most recent data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory Data Explorer reveals U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 totaled 6.7 billion metric tons in CO2 equivalents, up 2%, or 188 million metric tons, from the prior year (Agriculture’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks). Compared to 1990, U.S. GHG emissions have increased by 4%, or 240 million metric tons.

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U.S., China Phase One Agreement – Year One

2020 will be remembered by all, for a host of reasons. For those in the ag world, the Phase One Agreement between the United States and China will certainly be one of them. Signed on January 15, 2020, and in effect as of February 14, 2020, the agreement set lofty goals for U.S. agricultural exports to China. Now that all the data for calendar year 2020 is available, it’s time to see what went right and what did not.

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Inside Agriculture’s Big Tent

We completed the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 102nd Convention virtually in January. It went as well as it could have, but there were a few things that were a little wonky. By the way, wonky is my new favorite pandemic word and really is a good descriptor of most of what has happened because of the pandemic.

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