Interest rates on many types of agricultural loans in the nation’s midsection were already headed lower before the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FMOC) adjusted its benchmark lending rate lower in late July. In the first reduction since 2008, the FMOC dropped the rate to 2% from 2.25%, or 25 basis points from the previous level, and also left the door open to future cuts in 2019.

Digest Highlights

• Milk featured on fewer than 50% of top 200 restaurant chains’ kids’ menus
• Cover crop, prevent plant acreage jumps
• Non-real estate farm loans getting bigger, with longer terms
• Wisconsin dairy generates $45.6 billion in economic impact
• Idaho Milk Products expands Jerome facility
• Penn State Extension offers online ’milking practices’ course

The USDA’s latest milk production forecasts for both 2019 and 2020 were reduced, based on expectations of a smaller dairy herd and slower growth in milk per cow. As a result, price projections were increased slightly for 2019, with further improvement in 2020, based on USDA’s monthly World Ag Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report, released Aug. 12.

Your best employee should be in charge of feeding your herd, including weighing, mixing, delivery and monitoring rations. This individual can make or break the feeding program, rumen health and profitability.

Over his lifetime of farming the fertile soils of southeastern Wisconsin, Mike Walter has noticed a trend: wetter weather. However, he’s found a way to outsmart Mother Nature.

It was early in the evening on Thursday, Sept. 20. Members of the Meyer family were catching up on various tasks. They had put in a long day on Wednesday, harvesting, packing and covering their corn silage crop ahead of rain in the forecast.