2018 Farm Outlook

2018 Logan County Farm Outlook Magazine LINCOLN DAILY NEWS Oct. 25, 2018 Page 9 acres have been on decline since 2013, while soybean acres have increased. This same report says that soybean acres will exceed corn in the 2019 production year. On the flip side, Ohio farmers will reach a new high in corn yields this year according to a second article published in August by AgWeb. In Illinois, according to Grainnet.com farmers planted 200,000 fewer acres to corn in 2018 compared to 2017. At the same time, inputs for the remaining acres increased by $8 per acre. The article published on July 3rd of this year predicts that this will be the fifth straight year of a drop in farm income in the state of Illinois. However, the bright spot in this figure is that according to an article published in FarmdocDaily, Illinois farmers will see higher yields on fewer acres and their net losses on the higher production acres, such as those found in Logan County, will actually be less than in the past years. Farmdoc estimates that the net return per acre in 2018 will be minus $12 based on a yield of 215 bushels per acre. This is compared to losses of $57 per acre last year and a projected net loss of $44 per acre next year. Now, another consideration is how close will Logan County farmers come to that estimated yield average? If per chance, those yields could come in at an average of 220 bushels per acre, local farmers could actually see a small profit in this year’s corn crop. On the flip side of this coin, the Logan County Farm Bureau Young Leaders earlier this year conducted their countywide yield estimate tests and they determined that Logan County on the average will have yields in the 207 bushel range, meaning that the Farmdoc estimate of profitability could be inaccurate locally. CONTINUED