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2017 Logan County Farm Outlook Magazine
LINCOLN DAILY NEWS
March 23, 2017
Page 5
lofty numbers for historical prices.
The third part of profit is the expenses for
producing the crop. Costs of all inputs except
land cost totaled $521 per acre for corn and
$291 per acre for soybeans. Those figures are
before land costs, in many cases this would be
the cash rent figure.
Schnitkey and Good calculated at half corn
and half soybeans produced, a cash rent of
$240 would leave $11 per acre for return to
the tenant. That’s if everything plays out with
production, price received, and staying at the
estimated cost level.
Historically, this would be a razor-thin margin
to provide for the living expenses for the farm
family. The last sustained period of these types
of returns was about 35 years ago. The main
differences are that the interest rates are about
one-third of what they were then, and we are
dealing with a much larger scale in terms of
acres and dollars invested and received. The
old “rule-of-thumb” was you needed to gross
$400 per acre on corn and about 85% of that
on soybeans. Essentially the numbers have
doubled in this period to get to the same levels
of profits.
The livestock sector has traditionally been able
to help balance farm income. Today, not many
farms have any livestock on them. The prices
received for sheep and cattle have been bright
spots in the livestock markets. Surely you’ve
noticed the prices paid for eggs, milk, and pork
products in the grocery store. Eggs and milk
are to the point of ridiculous in many cases,
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