Revised projections of 2016 crop returns and 2017 crop budgets have been released. For 2016, soybeans are projected to have record-setting yields, leading to higher soybean returns than in 2015. Given that non-land costs and cash rent cuts have occurred, higher soybean returns should cause 2016 net incomes to be higher than 2015 incomes. However, crop budgets suggest very low returns and net incomes in 2017.
Soybean prices during the last five months of the 2015-16 marketing year averaged much higher than during the first seven months of the year. For example, the average daily bid price at central Illinois locations was $8.67 during the first seven months and $10.28 during the last five months of the year. Those daily prices ranged from $8.40 on March 1, 2016 to $11.58 on June 30, 2016.
Examining the competitiveness of wheat production in different regions of the world is often difficult due to lack of comparable data and consensus regarding what needs to be measured. To be useful, international data needs to be expressed in common production units and converted to a common currency. Also, production and cost measures need to be consistently defined across production regions or farms.
As previously reported, USDA awarded a coalition of partners led by the Illinois Corn Growers and the University of Illinois a $5.3 million Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) agreement. The agreement was for implementation of the Precision Conservation Management (PCM) effort to help farmers reduce nutrient loss from their fields by adapting precision technology, data and farm business management principles to the nutrient loss challenge and conservation. This article provides an update on the PCM effort.
Since 1973, crop commodity programs in the farm bill have largely been transformed to policies that make payments to farmers from policies that support and increase market price. Payment was usually triggered by low price, with the goal of helping farm income during multiple years of low or depressed prices. The last two farm bills have included a policy option that makes payment triggered by low revenue using a combination of price and yield declines. By taking into account yield as well as price, revenue arguably is a more inclusive payment policy. We explore this matter further by comparing changes in price, yield per planted acre, and revenue per planted acre in the current low price environment and one from the late 1990s.