If you’re facing lower land values and tightening credit conditions due to low agricultural commodity prices, you’re not alone. Quarterly surveys of lenders in numerous regional agricultural banking and credit districts show the impacts are widespread.

Kubota Corp., Osaka, Japan, parent company to Kubota U.S.A. Inc., on May 13 announced that it has entered into an agreement to purchase Great Plains Manufacturing Inc., based in Salina, Kansas. Once final, the purchase will expand the company’s long-time partnership with Land Pride and will include all five Great Plains divisions with multiple facilities in Kansas and a manufacturing plant in Sleaford, England.

A mild winter that reduced the need for extensive supplemental feeding in many areas helped preserve on-farm hay inventories, according to USDA’s May 10 crop production report.

Three universities received USDA grants to research cattle and forage production under changing climate conditions.

Demand for U.S. alfalfa hay and other alfalfa products continues to grow, according to latest estimates from USDA’s Foreign Ag Service.

Would you like to know what producers and ag thought leaders across the country think about the current agricultural economy? Now you can.

The National Alfalfa & Forage Alliance (NAFA) announced the creation of the first-ever U.S. Alfalfa Farmer Research Initiative (aka alfalfa checkoff program), a farmer-funded investment in alfalfa-related research to help drive innovation and profitability in the alfalfa industry.

While ChemChina’s move to take over Syngenta Ag is still pending and has garnered much of the attention this winter and late spring, it is only one of many buyouts and takeovers in the agricultural community.