The ratio of breakeven prices for soybeans to corn in central Illinois declined from 2000 to 2010, while the ratio of market prices for soybeans to corn has remained around a stable average since the mid-1970s. This implies a relative improvement in profitability potential for soybeans over corn which has been driven by changes in relative costs. While producers’ costs on a per acre basis have increased over time for both crops, soybean productions costs have increased less than for corn.

Implications of the demise of the countercyclical crop safety net are explored since the 2014 Farm Bill authorized the current set of commodity programs. Total commodity and ad hoc & emergency payments plus net insurance payments notably exceeded economic losses from producing the nine crops for which the USDA ERS computes a cost of production. The $88 billion excess of safety net payments over private market losses likely played a role in the 52% and 73% increase in farm assets and debt since 2013.

The total machinery investment required increases with the number of acres farmed, though at a decreasing rate as scale expands. Comparing data from 2013 to 2023 reveals a significant rise in both total and per-acre machinery values, particularly at smaller acreage levels. This increase reflects not only higher equipment costs but also changes in farm machinery characteristics – including the adoption of larger and more technologically advanced equipment.

While the median operating expense ratio for Illinois grain farms typically remained within the strong (80%) in northern and southern Illinois and approached that threshold in central Illinois in 2023.

This article examines the countercyclical performance of the program types that comprise the crop safety net: commodity, crop insurance, and ad hoc & emergency. Each was initially countercyclical to private market return for the cost of production crops as a group. Since 2006, only commodity programs are countercyclical and only after removing fixed-per-output-unit payments. Crop insurance ceased being countercyclical when revenue insurance became dominant.

The most recent Prospective Plantings report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture suggests more corn acres and fewer soybean and wheat acres in 2025. Those changes are not the…