USDA’s Farm Expenditures Report Shows A Few Surprises

What is the trend in farm expenditures from a year-over-year comparison? USDA Chief Economist Justin Benevidez discusses the changes per the Department’s recent annual farm expenditures report.

“Farm production expenditures are estimated at $490 billion for 2025, which was up from the previous year by about 2%, right around 1.9% for total production expenses,” Benevidez said.

The livestock and poultry sector reported the largest increase in expenditures in 2025. No surprise, according to Benevidez, given the increased value of meat animals over the past year.

“It's that purchase of that intermediate animal for further growth that winds up being the biggest expense, and it did go up year-over-year, which makes sense when you think about the cost of buying, say, feeder cattle or maybe buying lightweight calves to put into a stocker operation,” Benevidez noted. “Those animals were all more valuable, and so in that factor alone, we saw an increase in the cost of livestock and poultry category.”

Yet what he says perhaps was a surprise within the farm expenditure reports.

“Crop farm total expenditures decreased about 6.6%,” Benevidez said. “Total crop inputs, so we think about chemicals, fertilizers and seeds, were about $70.6 billion, which generally accounts for about a third of total crop farm expenditures. And they in some cases were flat and in some places went up. It was a bit of a mixed bag.”

When looking at farm expenditures by region.

“The Midwest, I think as a rule, contributes most to total expenditures,” said Benevidez. “They had total expenses of $156.5 billion, up from the previous year where they were at $149 billion.”

While the sales class with the largest farm expenditure totals in the report, “Is that $1 million in economic sales up to $4,999,999 class,” added Benevidez. “Any of those farms that had sales in that space.”

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