Where Landowners Get Their News Podcast

Foreign ownership of American farmland has become a political flashpoint. If you live in a competitive political district, you may have seen commercials about ownership by a foreign entity – most likely China – trying to buy a farm or ranch in your state.

Sometimes, a traditional approach won't work when it's time to sell the land, especially for a truly unique piece of property. Of course, every property is unique. But it's fair to say that some properties are especially unique, right?

Knowing your neighbors helps, but knowing your neighbors’ data may help even more. Today, some of the most important forces affecting land values may have little to do with farming.

A two-state, 1,477.5-acre farm sale just closed for $22.45 million, and it wasn't luck. Geswein Farm & Land Realty's Johnny Klemme explains how branding an Illinois-Indiana portfolio as one regional event, pairing a hybrid live/online auction, and spotlighting decades of tenant stewardship drove nearly 800 bids and turned a multi-generational family farm into the sale everyone was watching.

Growing risk may be outweighing previous abuse, Dustin Carlson, President of SRA 831(b) Admin, believes as people weigh potential benefits of micro-captive insurance plans for small and mid-sized businesses.

Sure, Lou Jewell could be sitting on a beach. Others his age, 77, may be doing that or wishing that they could. Jewell doesn't. He is in his fourth decade as a rural North Carolina land broker, and he is committed to helping others learn the land business.

Every farmer knows that most of the future value is the land, but more may be realizing that what is in the dirt may grow extra value. Section 180 in the federal tax code allows farmland owners to recognize residual soil fertility for a potential tax deduction.

Beekeepers have felt the sting of a substantial decline in colony numbers, but they aren't the only ones who can help solve the problem. The future of beekeeping, and domestic honey production, may depend in part on what happens on farms, along roadsides, on public lands, and anywhere else agriculture can find room for flowers and forage.

Alaska’s fishing industry may find new demand for an abundant fish that swims in obscurity for many consumers. For years, Alaska pollock has been hiding in fish sticks, fast-food sandwiches, and California rolls, often without consumers even knowing exactly what they were eating. Now, a very different force could help bring Alaska pollock into the spotlight: the growing popularity of GLP-1 medications.

For farmers and ranchers, deciding to sell a piece of land is much more than a business decision, especially if the land has been in the family for generations. This isn’t just selling a piece of property.

Hundreds of thousands of farmland acres could go out of production – at least temporarily -- because of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), Macotera Ag Group President & Founder Scott Bozzo believes.

Three decades offers more perspective than three years. Ten states provide more context than two. And volatility in one state’s agricultural priorities is not always the same as its bordering neighbor.

The sequel can sometimes be much different than the original. That could be the case with the proposed update of the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA).

Commodity prices, interest rates, weather, tariffs, artificial intelligence, ethanol, or the next “must have” piece of machinery.

New analysis from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) raises questions about whether the USDA’s staffing changes will be able to meet the needs of local farmers.

Most farmers don't dream about testifying before Congress. They are usually thinking about weather forecasts, equipment repairs, markets, or whether they will get the crop in before the next rain. But sometimes, representing agriculture means trading muddy boots for a microphone in Washington, D.C.

Every now and then, something comes along that sounds like it belongs in a science fiction movie. It goes something like this: Hydrogen is trapped 8,000 feet beneath Iowa farmland. Private developers extract it. Landowners have a new source of income. Their neighbors have new protections. Eventually – maybe, just maybe – residents across the state could see lower income taxes. They might not pay income taxes at all.

If you want to make it rain, you should just pull the combine out of the shed. That’s the joke. The absence of rain…until it arrived much too late…has not been funny to farmers in the Southern Plains.