You might feel as if you have whiplash, almost as if someone else spent their year yanking you back and forth. It’s been an unprecedented year for grain markets with many daily moves dictated by headlines from Europe rather than news from the Corn Belt.

China passed Canada as the top market for U.S. ag exports in 2011. As recently as 2004, China’s purchases totaled only $6 billion, making it our fifth-largest ag export market. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 1, the world’s largest importer of cotton and soybeans bought $20 billion of U.

MF Global appears to have violated one of the major tenets of clearing house accounting: the company transferred money from segregated customer accounts to the firm’s proprietary accounts. And since the firm declared bankruptcy, those funds have become the center of a collapse that has shaken farm country nationwide.

House Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin Peterson, D-MN, wants Congress to consider adding the farm bill, which was prepared for the failed supercommittee on deficit reduction, to a bill to pay for an extension of payroll tax relief and...

Agribusiness owners put their present situation at 118.0, or very positive and second only to November 2010’s 122.2 rating. However, looking ahead, agribusinesses managers who do business with farmers are the most negative about the future since the index’s inception, giving a rating of 88.

Who knew? Those thick, sharp-tasting orange peels that people would never dream of eating are “snack heaven” for cows. Not only does the cow get good roughage and vitamins, but it also gets an antimicrobial boost from the peel’s essential oils.

Building a market to sell home-finished beef is all about consistency. You not only have to provide tasty, tender beef one year, but every year. And there is a formula, some cattlemen say, to hitting the mark every time. The best place to start, they stress, is with the genetics of the animal.

In times of high commodity prices, you’ll need to study up on year-end taxplanning strategies. Keep in mind that these only make sense if they fit within your business plan.

Early reports are surfacing of producers ending up with cattle feed that has been extended with sawdust and other fillers, and then masked with molasses. There have also been reports of 2- and 3-year-old hay sold, and of the watering down of hay to add weight.

Rural bankers and brokers are in no mood for mercy. They are furious with MF Global, the CME Group and federal regulators who allowed the country’s third largest clearinghouse to dip into customer accounts for their own high-risk trades.