Agricultural Policy Review
A Research Publication of the Center for Agricultural & Rural Development
Spring 2025
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From the mid-1990s through the early 2010s, US corn producers steadily increased seeding rates. A steady increase from about 26,000 seeds per acre to about 31,000 seeds per acre occurred over the 1995–2015 period, which was an overall increase of about 19%. Visual inspection suggests little growth in seeding rate since 2015. Noteworthy is that around about 2015, seed companies stopped increasing their on-bag seeding rate guidance.
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Given the trade policy uncertainty over the past few months, agricultural market participants had been keying on the estimates from the June World Ag Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report to provide some clarity on USDA’s perspectives on agricultural supplies and usage for the year ahead. USDA’s projections showed little impact from the tariff changes in May and that continued with the update in June.
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Farmers in the US Corn Belt face a challenging balancing act: applying enough nitrogen fertilizer to maximize crop yields while minimizing environmental harm from runoff and leaching. Climate change complicates this balance, as more intense and frequent rainfall events lead to increased nitrogen loss from agricultural fields, resulting in lower yields and greater pollution.
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Economic prosperity in rural areas depends crucially on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of rural residents. Skilled workers earn higher incomes, create new firms, enhance the quality of life, and raise productivity for others around them. Rural areas are often endowed with natural resources including fertile land, but human resources are required to utilize these resources effectively.
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There are times when statistically significant factors are not economically relevant (while the factor is definitely related to a study, its impact is small enough that prices and/or returns do not change with it or do not cover the cost of employing the factor) and other times when economically relevant factors are not statistically significant. Recent research has led to a case of the latter, which shows economists may miss economically relevant choices when only concentrating on statistical significance.