Agricultural Business Management News

By Megan Roberts, Extension Educator As the Women in Ag Network grows and evolves in our third year, we asked ourselves how we could create more connections with women in agriculture across Minnesota.  Our advisory committee suggested featuring the stories of Minnesota women that farm and work in ag business. Each month we will interview a woman involved in agriculture and feature it in our newsletter as a way of connecting you to other agricultural women across the state. Our August 2018 featured "Woman in Ag" is Alison Rickeman. Alison serves on the WAGN advisory committee, is a farmer, and has worked in the agricultural and food industry since graduating from college in 2010. WAGN: Tell us about your farm and career. Alison: I currently serve as the state director of the Minnesota Dairy Initiative. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Management Communications from NDSU with minors in Public Relations, Mass Communications, and Ag Communications.  I’ve been with MDI for

By David Bau, Extension Educator Average, Median, Ten Percent Lowest Average Rents and Ten Percent Highest Average Rents are listed by county in recently release publication titled “Cropland Rental Rates for Minnesota Counties”.  The rental rates come from rents paid by farmers who participate in Adult Farm Management programs across Minnesota. This publication provides a historical perspective on rental rates paid by a group of Minnesota farmers and trends in those rental rates over the past five years. This information is meant as a guide and starting point. The information and data is not meant to establish, determine, set, fix, or even hint at what actual rents should be. It is simply a reporting of historical land rental rates in Minnesota. Historical rental data is included for years 2013 through 2017. Weighted average rental rates are listed by county for each year. The 2017 data also includes the median cash rent and the 10th and 90th percentile range, explained under “dat

By Megan Roberts, Extension Educator Over the past year, I have been asked often what is “new” in farm transition and estate planning. In general, there have been only a handful of recent changes in federal and Minnesotan laws and regulations impacting the farm succession process. Some of those changes are quite dramatic, such as the doubling of the lifetime estate and gift exclusion amount in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Other projected changes were not passed into law, resulting in continuation of past policies. In this blog post, I will briefly overview federal level policy changes, Minnesota level policy changes, and end by outlining key tenants of farm succession that remain unchanged. This post covers the year from July 2017-June 2018.