This Week in Ag #82

Today is the 70^th anniversary of a cultural icon: the TV Dinner. As a kid, TV dinners were a fun Saturday night treat (my tastes have evolved, thankfully). They were served by mom before my parents went out for the night. This invention literally changed the eating habits of our entire nation: shifting our culinary culture from a labor-intensive cooking process dedicated to taste and nutrition to one focused on speed and convenience (one could argue that many aspects of production agriculture have mirrored this shift).

Invented by Swanson, these packaged meals were served in disposable aluminum foil trays and divided into compartments so the food would not touch. The first TV dinner – consisting of turkey and dressing, sweet potatoes, and peas – sold for 98 cents. Ten million were sold the first year. This ushered in the concept of modular eating: you served as many TV dinners as you had family members. The name was appropriate, as it reflected the boom in TV sales during the 1950s, when TV ownership went from 20% to 90%, and families gathered around their sets during mealtime. TV dinner sales also followed the rising trend of both spouses working outside of home. But perhaps the biggest catalyst for frozen dinners was a common luxury that most of us take for granted today: the refrigerator/freezer. By the mid 1950s, 33 million American families owned a refrigerator, and the manufacturers were gradually increasing the size of the freezer compartments in them. Last year, frozen dinner sales rose to more than $10 billion, while total frozen food sales leaped to $67 billion.

“In Praise of the Soil” is an in-depth segment on the current and future state of soil health. It’s part of the annual Global Insights Series from CropLife (the top magazine/digital media property targeting ag retailers) featuring leading voices within the ag industry. I am privileged to be featured throughout the article, along with sources from Helena, Verdesian, Mosaic, Nutrien and others. The editorial team did an excellent job of weaving various insights together into a very informative and entertaining story. You can read it here.

#Harvest24 is upon us. What’s usually the most uplifting time of the year seems anything but. The Purdue Ag Economy Barometer confirmed what we already knew: farmer sentiment is in the doldrums. The Farm Capital Investment & Farm Financial Performance Indexes have reached record lows, as Farmer Sentiment fell 13 points over last month. Low crop prices are the rising pain point, pulling nearly even with higher input costs as farmers’ biggest concerns. While crop prices are still high historically speaking – corn was below $2.00 when I started farming in 2000 (what the **** was I thinking?) – it’s the dramatic drop that’s provided a shock to the system. Last week September corn traded at $3.90 per bushel, down from $6.98 just 24 months prior. Earlier this year, we had gaps of over $3.80 from the glory days of 2022. From a pure price standpoint, we’ve only seen similar price gaps twice before: from 2008-2010 (The Great Recession) and in 2012-14. Unfortunately for farmers, while crop prices have dropped dramatically, crop input, energy and land rental prices have not. And interest rates have risen sharply.