2017 net farm income projected to drop by half compared to 2013

On February 7, 2017, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its forecast of 2017 farm income and expenses (http://tinyurl.com/gs2typz). Net farm income for the current year is forecast to be $62.3 billion or $5.9 billion less than 2016. Notwithstanding poor weather or an unexpected surge in demand, this would be the fourth year in a row that farmers experience a decline in net farm income. If farm income comes in as expected, it would be half (50.4 percent) of the $123.7 billion that farmers received in 2013. This is the largest four-year decline in income that farmers have seen in the last 25 years. To illustrate the problem that farmers face, during the 2012 crop marketing year for corn (September 2012 through August 2013) farmers earned $1.35 per bushel above expenses compared to a loss of $0.43 per bushel in the 2015 crop marketing year, the latest year for which the cost of production is currently available. With corn prices over the next ten years projected to stay below $4.00, crop farmers are looking at a bleak future.