OSU Farm Management

06/02/2026

OSU Extension offers Oklahoma producers free assistance with farm financial planning. This program is open for all types of animal and crop operations.

This assistance includes helping develop beginning balance sheets and other financial statements which are useful for farmers and ranchers as they try to secure loans. Additionally, many USDA support programs require beginning balance sheets as part of the application process. These financial statements can help producers see how their operations performed.

Sign up at

Learn more about Farm Financial Planning Assistance & Benchmarking, such as the offered programs by OSU Extension and additional resources.

05/30/2026

Government support for U.S. farm operations increasingly occurs through ad hoc payments, or one -time payments that are not known in advance. These payments can offer valuable support, especially in tight financial years. How to use them depends on the operation’s needs, goals, and expectations about future policy. That said, it’s important to recognize that while these programs have become a recurring feature of the farm safety net, their timing, eligibility criteria, and payment amounts can vary and are not guaranteed in advance. As such, managing these payments needs to be given careful consideration since their timing and size may be more variable than other program payments. Making the most of them may involve balancing immediate needs with steps that strengthen the operation’s financial position for the long term.

Read at https://www.agmanager.info/ag-policy/farm-bill-0/top-5-considerations-managing-large-one-time-government-payments

Article by Brady Brewer, Mark Dikeman, Allen Featherstone, Jennifer Ifft, Kellen Liebsch, and Robin Reid, Kansas State University Department of Agricultural Economics

05/29/2026

Family Communications

This video discusses how to improve family communications, understanding stakeholder perspectives, and conduct family meetings. These skills can help families on a day to day basis as well as increase the likelihood of a successful farm or ranch transition.

View at https://youtu.be/T3wFlt8G5JI

Additional resources for planning and executing a farm or ranch transition may be found at https://extension.okstate.edu/programs/farm-transitions/communicating-effectively

2 likes, 1 comment. "Family Communications"

05/28/2026

Agricultural lenders play a key role in farm operations. According to the USDA ERS, about 60% of midsize farms and 75% of large farms carry debt, highlighting the importance of the farmer-lender relationship. But how do farmers portray these relationships? We conducted 74 in-depth interviews with 98 farmers and ranchers in four states (Alabama, Kansas, Montana, and North Carolina). Interview participants included midsize and large-scale operations producing a diverse range of crop and livestock products. Participants’ description of their lender relationships tended to fall into three types: trusting and collaborative, strained and tense, and transactional and unstable. Here’s what they told us.

Read at https://southernagtoday.org/2026/04/20/more-than-a-number-the-farmer-lender-relationship/

Article by Gracen Bridges, Kelli Russell, and Mykel Taylor

Authors: Gracen Briges, Kelli Russell, and Mykel Taylor Agricultural lenders play a key role in farm operations. According to the USDA ERS, about 60% of midsize farms and 75% of large farms carry debt, highlighting the importance of the farmer-lender relationship. But how do farmers portray these ...

05/26/2026

The last two decades have seen a significant increase in farmers using either double cropping or cover cropping on corn, soybean, and cotton fields. Double cropping is the practice of planting a crop in the fall between summer crops (such as planting winter wheat after corn has been harvested or planting soybeans following a winter wheat harvest) to increase the productive value of a single field. Cover crops are unharvested winter crops grown primarily for their soil health and environmental benefits. Cover cropping can be incorporated into either a summer rotation (where the summer crop in a field alternates across years, such as a corn-soybeans rotation) or with continuous cropping (where the main crop over the warm season is the same over a period of years). Cotton fields have seen the largest increase in these practices, with the area under either double cropping or cover cropping growing from 15 percent of acres in 2003 to 32 percent of acres in 2019. The data suggest that the decline in single cropping is largely driven by expanded use of cover crops. This chart can be found in the USDA, Economic Research Service topic page Soil Tillage and Crop Rotation, updated in December 2025.

Read at https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=114011

05/25/2026

Recent updates to the Policy Design Lab add interactive map visualizations at the county level for Farm Bill Title I payments (ten-year totals, 2014 to 2023). Included are total payments by the commodities programs in Subtitle A (ARC and PLC), Dairy Margin Coverage, and the Supplemental Agricultural Disaster Assistance Payments. Users can select each category to visualize total payments by county. The updated visualizations are available at the link below. The updates also include the ability to download the data, which facilitates more comparisons and analysis, as discussed below.

Find at

05/22/2026

While farmland values often capture headlines in the agriculture sector, a more subtle yet relentless source of financial pressure for farmers and ranchers is property tax on business assets. Unlike taxes on real estate (land and structures), this levy targets the tangible personal property essential to the operation of the farming operations, primarily machinery, equipment, vehicles, and sometimes even stored grain or livestock.

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05/21/2026

Glance N' Go for sorghum aphid helps farmers and crop advisors quickly determine treatment thresholds and need for further management of sorghum aphid infestations in grain sorghum fields.

Find at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sorghum/id6736707721

Find more apps developed by OSU Ag Extension at https://extension.okstate.edu/programs/mobile-applications/index.html

05/20/2026

By carefully evaluating several factors before selecting and developing a business transfer agreement, you increase the chances of successfully creating a two-generation business agreement.

Learn more at https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c4-10.html

Article by Don Hofstrand, retired extension agricultural business specialist, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach

05/19/2026

The United States has a long and storied history of providing food aid to those who are in need around the world. One of the earliest examples dates to 1812 when the U.S. government sent $50,000 of wheat flour to Venezuela following a devastating earthquake. U.S. international food aid efforts were formalized with passage of the Food for Peace Act in 1954, which sought to alleviate global hunger while also disposing of domestic agricultural surpluses. In total, the U.S. has consistently spent in excess of $4 billion per year on international food aid and is, by far, the world’s largest contributor.[1] That funding results in more than 1 million metric tons of U.S.-grown agricultural commodities—including corn, sorghum, rice and wheat— being shipped to recipient countries each year, serving as a consistent source of demand and helping to stabilize domestic prices.

Read at https://southernagtoday.org/2026/04/02/the-future-of-food-aid/

Article by Bart Fischer and Joe Outlaw, Texas A&M University, Agricultural & Food Policy Center