Following a steep decline in agricultural commodity prices, the past several years have seen a weaker market for farmland and an uptick in interest rates. At the same time, farm sector income has declined and farm interest expenses have increased. How vulnerable might the farm sector be to a further decline in commodity prices or a rise in interest rates? Inflation-adjusted net cash farm income for the sector is forecast in 2018 to be 38 percent lower than its peak in 2012 and 7 percent below its 1970-2016 average. [node:read-more:link]

Because California produces almost a fifth of the nation’s milk, the impact of the order will cause ripples in the surface of milk prices from Los Angeles to Minneapolis and from Boston to Miami. Whether those ripples grow into waves remains to be seen. California’s new Federal Order will be implemented at the same time world markets continue to churn and trade wars potentially disrupt U.S. exports.  For starters, California processors will have to learn how to move milk around the state without the millions of dollars in transportation credits California’s state order provided. [node:read-more:link]

Lancaster County residents and farmers have taken state agriculture officials up on their appeal for ideas to address Pennsylvania’s dairy crisis. They offered strong advice and plenty of ideas, such as allowing whole milk back in public schools and eliminating the minimum retail price that milk can be sold for in stores. Multiple commenters expressed strong criticism of Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board policies and the practices of large dairy cooperatives. [node:read-more:link]

A Wisconsin dairy farmer says domestic problems may be a bigger threat to his industry than Canadian trade policy. James Juedes, who owns a dairy farm that has been in his family for more than a century, said, “If we would’ve had the foresight to do what Canada did 10-15 years ago, to limit what we had for production, we wouldn’t be in this situation.” Instead of focusing on Canada, Juedes is more worried about the American dairy hurting itself by producing more milk than the U.S. can handle. [node:read-more:link]

Steven Rattner shares four charts that show US-Canadian trade is far different from what Trump has portrayed. The US actually has a trade surplus with Canada — and a substantial one with dairy product. We export roughly twice as much in dairy to Canada as we import from them — and our total dairy trade is only a small fraction of overall trade with the country last year. Canada's tariffs are actually the lowest of the major developed countries. [node:read-more:link]

Donald Trump talks a lot about America’s dairy industry. Specifically, he likes to go on about how Canada’s tariffs on milk products put our farmers at a disadvantage. This appears to be his main rhetorical justification for starting a small, but diplomatically bruising, trade skirmish with our northern neighbor, which has led to new tariffs on both sides of the border. [node:read-more:link]

This seems like a good time to talk about trade deficits. The notion that U.S. trade deficits are inherently bad is simply not true. Opposing trade deficits on the campaign trail makes for good politics, but that just shows how little most of us know about the topic. First of all, a trade deficit is not a deficit in the way most people think. A budget deficit is a real deficit, and we all understand the obligation of a government needing to pay back borrowed money. A trade deficit, however, has nothing to do with borrowing money or incurring an obligation. [node:read-more:link]

Ending a dispute over a proposed net neutrality bill, California Democratic legislators said Thursday they have agreed on a proposal that would provide the strongest protections of open access to the internet in the country in response to last month’s federal repeal of similar rules.The compromise measures, which still require legislative approval, would bar internet service providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down websites and video, as well as charging websites fees for fast lanes, said state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), an author of one of the two proposed bills. [node:read-more:link]

Retaliatory trade tariffs by China and Mexico now apply to 40 percent of total American pork exports, threatening the livelihoods of thousands of U.S. pig farmers, the National Pork Producers Council said Friday in response to the escalating trade war between the United States and China. The Trump administration’s 25 percent tariff on $34 billion worth of Chinese products officially went into effect overnight, prompting China to quickly retaliate with previously threatened penalties on an equal amount of U.S. exports, including pork, beef, soybeans and automobiles. [node:read-more:link]

In Fremont, Neb., the sky-high feed mill looming over the open fields signals a shift in a state where beef dominates. It will support a $400 million chicken complex that Costco Wholesale Corp. is building to control the quality of birds it sells in its depots nationwide. To supply the giant facility, grain farmers are converting to poultry growers, building on their plots at least four chicken houses each, with some as many as 16. Each of the 432 barns houses 42,000 birds, making for a one-time capacity of more than 18 million of them. [node:read-more:link]