2020 Spring Farm Outlook

Page 10 2020 Logan County Farm Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March 19, 2020 conditions may have impacted a field with wind or water damage from storms throughout the season. Drone technology is also popular on the farm. Irwin noted that on one of the SBL farms, he paid a visit to the tenant after a storm. The crop looked okay from the side of the field, but they needed to know what had happened deeper in. With a drone they had flown a camera over the field and there was substantial damage inside the field. From a lender perspective, Irwin said that the one thing that remains the same is that the banker wants to see that balance sheet and he wants it to show promise. The tools the producer has at hand to examine his yields and productivity don’t necessarily add to the balance sheet directly, but indirectly, when the farm is more efficient it does show on the balance sheet with better returns. The 2010 Farm Outlook magazine looked at the past farm season. In 2009, farmers had encountered water and a lot of it. Rains had hindered harvest tremendously and many were still trying to bring in crops when winter arrived in Logan County. Ironically, in 2019 farmers encountered water and a lot of it at the beginning of the season and hindered planting, it had the same impact in many areas. The 2019 harvest was spread out, some areas were harvested almost on time, while in other areas harvest had to be delayed because planting had been delayed and crops were not mature at their normal time of year. Both the 2009 and the 2019 scenarios impacted yields and also impacted the cost of harvest. In 2010, Irwin said that the best the producer could hope for was that there would be some good years to counter balance the bad one. In 2020 Irwin looked back on those 10 years and said that there had been plenty of ups and downs including wet and also drought, but there had been a big boon for the producer in the early years following 2009. With the poor yields of 2009, grain prices soared. There is a cycle within farming between grain prices and costs of inputs (seed fertilizer, chemical, etc.) The value of inputs go up when grain goes up, but it is after the fact. It takes a while for everything to balance out, and in that time, farming becomes quite profitable. There is also a flip side to that coin, when the grain prices drop and the input costs are still high, the farm profitability shrinks substantially. However, farmers did reap the benefit of that cycle in the seasons immediately following Continue 4