Mormon's Buy Up Farmland and Global Ag Productivity Falling
From the Ag Information Network, this is your Agribusiness Update.
**The Mormon Church’s real estate arm is spending $289 million to acquire tens of thousands of acres of farmland across eight states.
Farmland Reserve, a nonprofit arm of LDS, is buying 46 farms from real estate investor Farmland Partners.
The farms encompass 41,500 acres of land and include sites in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and the Carolinas.
CEO Doug Rose says the company plans to lease “these productive farms to local farmers.”
**Global agriculture productivity is falling behind the curve according to a new report by Virginia Tech.
The reports executive editor, Tom Thompson says global agricultural productivity growth has slowed from 1.9% annually during 2001-2010 to 0.7% annually during 2013-2022.
Thompson says this dramatic slowdown will prevent us from reaching our agricultural production and sustainability goals by 2050, with potentially dire impacts on food and nutrition security, unless we reverse this trend.
**U.S. agricultural exports were at $13.01 billion in August, essentially unchanged from July.
Imports of $17.19 billion, were down 2% from July, resulting in a monthly trade deficit of $4.18 billion.
AgWeb reports exports thus far this fiscal year total $161.3 billion compared to imports of $188.82 billion, creating a cumulative deficit of $27.52 billion.
The sector has recorded monthly deficits in 10 out of 11 months in FY 2024.
