While the ERS projects a 3.7% ($19.8 billion) rise in farm sector debt in 2025, anticipated declines in interest expenses and other input costs may alleviate pressure on farm balance sheets. Our analysis of Illinois grain farms reveals that while large farms have historically reported higher interest expense ratios, all farm sizes have shown similar trends over the past two decades. Larger farms tend to utilize debt more extensively, resulting in slightly higher interest expense-to-gross income ratios.

A contingency plan is a course of action designed to help a business determine how to respond to possible future events. Common contingency plans used by a business relate to how to respond to the departure or absence of key personnel and how to respond to changes in projected cash flows. Given the expected drop in crop prices this fall, it would be prudent for a farm to examine the sensitivity of their cash flow and repayment capacity to changes in crop prices.

Grocery prices play a large role in the public’s perceptions of inflation. In this article, we discuss public expectations for the impact of tariffs on food prices from the most recent wave of the Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey and changes in tracked measures of public expectations about inflation. In summary, we find that the majority of respondents across political parties expect tariffs to raise their food prices and are worried about the impact on their grocery bills.

The U.S. ethanol industry entered 2024 coming off one of it’s best three-year periods of profitability since 2007. However, the price of ethanol plunged late in 2023, leading to questions about the outlook for profits in the coming year. The purpose of this article is to estimate the profitability of U.S. ethanol production for the 2024 calendar year and assess whether the industry returned to the lofty profits of 2021 – 2023 or regressed towards the long-run mean level of profits.

The price discovery period for federal crop insurance policies with a March 15th sales closing date ended on February 28th. Insurance guarantees for 2025 are low compared to the 2022 and 2023 crop years when projected prices were higher for both corn and soybeans. This coupled with a higher subsidy rate for 2025 might make the Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO) of greater interest to producers to supplement their Revenue Protection (RP) or alternative individual plan coverage.

The 1990 Farm Bill began allowing US farmers to make planting decisions not constrained by government programs. This article documents the importance of planting flexibility for US corn, soybean, and wheat acres. Findings include (1) that the ethanol boom has not impacted the long-term increase in either corn or soybean acres, (2) that smaller acreage states play a larger role in corn than soybeans and (3) that corn has shifted more west than north while soybeans has shifted more north than west.