The panel discussion, part of a CME Group Inc. conference on global financial leadership in Naples, FL, comes as the debate over food versus fuel returns. The issue had been dormant for much of the past two years, but heated up again in recent weeks as corn prices reached two-year highs.

A sudden spike in corn prices may limit U.S. meat production in 2011, according to John Harrington, DTN chief livestock market analyst.

Farmers could harvest sizable tax write-offs in a new small-business law giving extra incentives for end-of-year equipment and truck purchases. The U.S. House approved the legislation Sept. 24 following Senate action earlier this fall, and President Barack Obama signed it into law last Monday.

In Texas, there are a lot of good reasons for landowners to keep pasture rental rates steady. One of the biggest is called an agricultural use exemption and without it, landowners can see property taxes go up about tenfold.

One minute past midnight, Dec. 31, 2010, the amount of taxes your heirs will pay goes from zero to a top rate of 55 percent. Would that be enough of a tax bill to drop the ax on the farm as family members are forced to sell a lifetime of work off in pieces to pay Uncle Sam?.

The index aims to take the pulse of the agricultural economy. Its based on a survey of 500 producers picked at random to reflect the demographic makeup of the 2007 USDA Ag Census. The survey is conducted three times a yearbefore planting, before harvest, and at years end.

China has imposed anti-subsidy duties for five years on imports of U.S. chicken products after concluding producers received improper support, the Commerce Ministry said last Wednesday amid a string of trade spats with Washington.

Even before the $1-pergallon biodiesel blenders credit expired at the end of 2009, U.S. biodiesel producers were in a tight economic spot.

U.S. farm exports are forecast to increase to $113 billion in fiscal year 2011, the second-largest total on record, amid reduced competition from Russia and neighboring countries hit by drought, the Agriculture Department said last Tuesday..

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week released a draft clean water strategy that outlines plans for new rules and other initiatives the agency says will prevent water quality from degrading, bet- ter manage pollution from animal...