2023 Spring Farm Outlook

Page 4 2023 Logan County Spring Farm Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March 2023 By John Fulton In the world of agriculture, some things have improved, but many of the challenges of the preceding year remain. At least temporarily, energy prices are off their highs. Some fertilizer prices have also eased. Availability of some items has increased, while others have decreased. Outside factors have also rocked the world of producers and consumers, with the price and availability of eggs being one glaring example. Land costs remain high for producers. According to the Corn and Soybean Budgets from Gary Schnitkey at the U of I, highly productive land in Central Illinois brings an average land cost of $341 per acre for the cash rent. Based on average yields of 227-bushel corn and 72-bushel soybeans used in the budgets, the break-even price of corn rests at $5.28 and soybeans at $12.13. Those are lofty yields - basically at the levels we had this past year. If things go according to the assumptions in the budgets, returns of $72 for corn and $92 for soybeans are anticipated per acre. 2023 Spring Farm Introduction Challenges that lay ahead for Logan County producers The availability of new farm equipment is very limited. Many of the companies are in a custom order situation for the equipment. Backlogs vary, but may be most of a year in some instances. Parts availability is also highly variable. Costs of used equipment continues to rise, similar in nature to the auto market. For those not in agriculture, a recent model used combine can be around $500,000 and the corn and soybean heads for the combine can add another $200,000. It isn’t hard to spend a quarter of a million dollars on a “row crop” tractor either. Some of the issues are labor related, some are material related, and supply and demand greatly influences availability as well. The microchip shortage is also affecting availability of power and machinery units for agriculture. Many experts are anticipating a gradual increase in chip availability, with some shortages existing through at least this year. A new Ag Census survey has been conducted this year. This is done every five years. Unfortunately, local level data will take quite a while to be tabulated. Trends from the 2017 ag census will most likely continue – and even accelerate. One of the more noticeable Continued --