In a May 1 post on the Maryland Risk Management Education Blog, Kelly Nuckolls discussed safety and liability laws covering the movement of farm machinery. The article noted employers are liable for any accidents caused by their employees while those employees are acting within the scope of their job.

Many of the decisions you make on the farm – and in life – are influenced by what you already know and adjusted by whatever new information you can obtain.

Brothers and sisters farming together can make for many different, interesting and somewhat challenging dynamics.

I live near Bradford County in Pennsylvania. In 2012, Bradford County ranked ninth in the state and 144th in the nation for milk production. In 2014, Bradford was among the 44 counties nationally that produced 50 percent of the nation’s milk, as reported by the Kansas City Market Administrator’s office.

With low milk prices and tight margins, most dairies might not have much appetite for new investments these days, but that doesn’t mean adoption of new technology has stopped.

Many dairy parlors are using a biometric system to authenticate employees’ attendance and as a time clock for punching in and out or entering and exiting work stations. The term biometrics is derived from the Greek word bio (life) and metrics (to measure).

When someone mentions A.I., minds in the dairy business immediately think about artificial insemination. However, this article will focus on a different type of A.I.

Whether it’s a piece of property or a tractor, once you’ve decided to make an investment in your business, the question then turns to the source of capital to finance that investment. Do you invest your cash? If so, how much?

“Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds. They’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald

For years, we have talked about markets and their behavior. We study supply and demand features. We discuss exports and trade policy. We analyze chart patterns and talk about technical influences. But there remains one element of the market seldom mentioned. There is a particular group of people often left out of the conversation – speculators.