Farm Income Clues Potentially Showing 2018 Picture

The USDA won’t release their first look at projected farm income until February, but there could be some clues according to Chief Economist Rob Johannson.

2017 was a year of flat to falling income across much of the ag sector, and Johannson said he expects more of the same in 2018 and farm safety net programs like ARC or PLC might not help much.

“The payments under those programs are going to become smaller as each year passes. With the Olympic average, we’re going to be dropping out those record high years we saw in 2012-2013. As those fall out of the calculations, payments to be received by producers that are enrolled in those programs are also going to come down.”

The other problem is that farm production costs have been rising, so that could make the projection a mere formality, but Johannson said there are a lot of factors that will go into their projection so they don’t have a clear picture yet.