If you’re anything like us, as you’ve grown older, you’ve tried to eat a little healthier. You may have replaced some unhealthy snacks with nuts or a piece of fruit. The 3 p.m. Twinkie has become the 3 p.m. mandarin orange or a handful of walnuts, almonds or pistachios. We know we’re not alone in [...]

Thank you to our friends at ICBC for visiting with us today and learning about our business. We wish them the best of luck in the Global Education and Training Program at the University of Illinois @GETillinois

 Our friend and auction partner Nick Cummings, along with his wife Sunny, were recently named  “Outstanding Young Farmer” at the National Outstanding Young Farmer Congress in Sacramento, CA. Murray Wise Associates often partners with Nick and his colleagues at the Wendt Group to conduct real estate and farm machinery auctions and we are honored to work [...]

As we turn the corner into spring and the winds pick up, I am reminded of our industry as a whole. Whether I’m walking to the car or sitting in the bleachers at my daughter’s softball games, the wind always seems to be howling in the direction I’m facing this time of year. For farmers, [...]

Congratulations to Murray Wise who was recently recognized and cited in a white paper titled “History of Institutional Farmland Investing” which traces the history of farmland investing from its origins as a “niche investment dominated by a few large pension plans and insurance companies” to its current status as “a mainstream institutional real asset class [...]

Major changes are in store for California farmers as a result of the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The 2014 act requires that groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) be created by January of 2020 for 43 high priority basins and 84 medium priority basins in California, and that Groundwater Sustainability Agencies be established for those [...]

The market for midwestern agricultural land this year has been extremely slow, probably the slowest I’ve seen in 30 years. Based on a relatively small number of transactions, I am seeing higher-quality land maintain its value, while lesser-quality ground has been seeing greater declines. Part of the reason for the slow market has been the [...]

We remember with great fondness and admiration our longtime friend and Wise Ag Update editor, Rick Baker. Rick had an amazing way with words and we will miss his presence in the pages of our newsletter. More than anything though, we will miss his friendship. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Carol and [...]

As this is written, it is almost certain that the Fed will increase short term rates in 2017. In addition, rates have already been trending up slightly for the past few months.  Inflationary pressure is peeking around the corner in the form of higher wages (including the many minimum wage laws effective January 1, 2017) [...]