2019 Illinois Crop Budgets are Dismal

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2019 Illinois Crop Budgets are Dismal
Gary Schnitkey, Agricultural Economist - University of Illinois

If the numbers pan out next year will be dismal for Illinois grain farmers. Todd Gleason has more on the reasons why….

The numbers look bad for Illinois grain farmers…
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1:24 radio self-contained

The numbers look bad for Illinois grain farmers next year. That’s the only conclusion Gary Schnitkey can draw when he puts the costs up against the incomes for corn and soybeans in 2019. Schnitkey, an ag economist at the Univesity of Illinois, says fuel and fertilizer costs are expected to go up. Prices aren’t and that’s the dismal part.

Schnitkey :30 …what that has done to commodity prices.

Quote Summary - Probably the one thing that has changed relative to recent years is that corn is expected to be more profitable than soybeans. Again, that is largely due to our use of $3.60 for a 2019 corn price and $8.50 for soybeans. This switches the profitability around. That’s driven by trade concerns, particularly with China and what that has done to commodity prices.

Here’s an example of the bottomline for next year’s budget. A northern Illinois farmer might expect to have $174 to split between the farmer and the landowner for corn and $143 for soybeans. This return is considerably below the cost of cash rent and roughly, says Schnitkey, near the 2005 returns.