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Journal Article
Not Bullish: U.S. Cattle Herds Hung Up on Higher Interest Expenses
Cattle inventories declined to historically low levels at the start of 2024. Cattle producers may facechallenges maintaining or restocking herds, as higher interest expenses on cattle and input purchases in2022–23 have constrained profit margins. Although feed costs have decreased slightly, higher costs forfinancing and other operating expenses could continue to put pressure on cattle production andprofitability.
Working Paper
Drought and Cattle: Implications for Ranchers
Drought has occurred with greater intensity and frequency in many areas of the United States in recent years. Despite the growing concern surrounding the impacts of drought on the agricultural sector, few studies have quantified the impact of drought on the cattle industry. In this paper, we estimate the impacts of drought on cattle herd management, hay production, hay prices, and farm income in the United States from 2000 to 2022. Our results indicate that drought negatively impacts hay production and results in higher hay prices. Drought also contributes to herd liquidation and is ...
Journal Article
Reshuffling in Soybean Markets following Chinese Tariffs
Chinese tariffs on U.S. soybeans could reduce the global competitiveness of U.S. soybeans in the longer term.
Journal Article
Harvesting the Wind: Oklahoma’s Strong Electricity Growth Has Few Agricultural Tradeoffs
This edition of Oklahoma Economist examines where electricity is generated within the state, its effect on agricultural land, and what may lie ahead.
Journal Article
Commodity Prices Have Limited Influence on U.S. Food Inflation
Food prices increased at the fastest pace in more than two decades from July 2021 to July 2022. We show that this increase has not been driven by commodity prices but by an increase in consumer spending on food at home and increases in costs along the supply chain. Our results suggest that food inflation could ease if consumers shift more purchases back to food service establishments and if costs in food processing and marketing abate. Conversely, food inflation could remain high if broader measures of inflation persist.
Journal Article
Labor Constraints and Strong Demand Are Driving Robust Food Services Inflation
Although headline inflation has slowed in recent months, inflation for core services has remained elevated since the first half of 2021. Inflation for food services in particular has been significantly higher than inflation for goods and other services. We argue that food services inflation has been elevated by the sector’s fast rebound in expenditures and its high dependency on labor amid labor shortages and elevated labor costs.
Journal Article
The Dispersion of Farmland Values in the Tenth District
Cortney Cowley examines the widening dispersion of farmland values in the Tenth Federal Reserve District and finds that land quality, climate, and commodity sales have played important roles.
Journal Article
Tight Labor Markets Have Been a Key Contributor to High Food Inflation
Food inflation remains higher than measures of overall inflation, and labor markets have been tight. We find that processed food products have driven recent increases in grocery prices, and we argue that labor market tightness affects the prices of these labor-intensive products in particular through increases in production and distribution costs. Food inflation at grocery stores could remain elevated if price pressures on the supply side persist and demand for food at home remains strong.
Working Paper
Examining the Relationships between Land Values and Credit Availability
Given the changes made to the agricultural lending system since the 1980s farm crisis, we investigate the current effects of credit availability on land values. Using data from Federal Reserve Agricultural Credit Surveys, we measure credit availability and perform county-level panel fixed effects estimations controlling for land value determinants, credit availability factors, and county and macroeconomic factors. We build an indicator of increased credit availability and find that estimating farmland values with different factors of credit availability separately could mask combined effects. ...
Working Paper
The Passthrough of Agricultural Commodity Prices to Food Prices
Food inflation has been excluded from core measures of inflation under the reasoning that it is a phenomenon of the supply side of the economy, driven by stochastic supply shocks to agricultural production that can affect the availability of farm products and increase food price volatility. However, the share of food costs related to agricultural production has fallen over the years as food value chains have become more complex and food prices tied more closely to value added downstream in the supply chain. We calculate the magnitude and extension of agricultural price passthroughs to food ...