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On May 11 and 12, 2009, the entire staff of the Halderman Companies gathered at our office in Wabash, Indiana to discuss current trends in farm management and real estate.  The area representatives from around Indiana, Michigan and Ohio completed a questionnaire prior to the meeting and the following results were discussed:

- 73% said there is less land on the market now than there was a year ago.

- 91% said land prices were equal to or weaker than prices a year ago with cropland steady, woods, recreational land, rural homes and rural homesites down substantially.

- 71% said that auction was the predominant and most successful method for selling farms in their area.

- Expectations for land values during the upcoming summer and fall are:

     * Farmland down 5 to 10%

     * Rural homesites and recreational land down 5 to 30%

Check in for our next blog update on lease terms and conditions.

On May 5, 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a proposed rule for calculating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS).  A requirement of the Energy Indepedence and Security Act of 2007, these proposed rules have raised controversy because of the inclusion of indirect land use changes in the calculation.  In short, the indirect land use component refers to the GHG estimated to be generated by the farming of currently unfarmed land to make up for crop land dedicated to ethanol and other biofuel production.  Some biofuel industry members are clearly upset by the indirect land use component suggesting that corn ethanol is unjustly penalized.  Others note that the propsed rule does not affect existing ethanol facilities, some of which have been shut down due to unfavorable corn-ethanol-gasoline price ratios.  The Renewable Fuels Association news release on EPA decision to include indirect land use in the GHG scoring can be found at this link: http://renewablefuelsassociation.cmail1.com/T/ViewEmail/y/39711EB997C64BD0. 

The EPA’s announcement of the Renewable Fuel Standard proposed rules along with a wide array of other information on the issue can be found at http://www.epa.gov/otaq/renewablefuels/index.htm.

At the Halderman companies, we don’t feel comfortable making an assessment of the impact of the overall proposed rule just yet.  Reportedly, combining the rule proposal itself with the accompanying analysis results in a document set exceeding 1,000 pages!  Just reading through it all would an endurance event.  Perhaps more importantly, the EPA administrator notes that the Agency is seeking scientific peer review to validate the rule components.  While that’s usually a good sign for the future implementation, it will take a significant amount of time to complete.  Clearly, the role of corn-based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, soy biodiesel, and other biofuels will have a huge impact on the market for our landowner clients and farmer-tenant partners.  We will watch with great interest and welcome your comments on the issue.

Due to the growing concern over swine flu, we feel it is necessary to find credible information to share with our clients and customers. No pigs have been found with swine flu (HINI) -only humans -but pork producers need to take precautionary measures to protect their herds from being infected with any flu virus, said a Purdue University veterinarian. “Flu viruses are named after the first animal they were found in,” said Sandy Amass. “This particular strain just happened to be discovered in pigs in 1930, and this is the only reason it’s called swine flu. We don’t even know if the virus found in humans will infect pigs.” Purdue Extension nutrition specialist Melissa Maulding said the flu virus is not a food-borne pathogen, and there is no risk to the food supply. “The flu is a virus that is transmitted through interaction with people,” she said. “The biggest defense against catching the flu is to wash your hands.”

Consumers can eat pork with no concern for swine flu Purdue expert: Swine flu has no connection to today’s pigs