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Machinery Cost of Operations Estimates

Machinery Cost Estimates Summary

Summary of costs for Field Operations, Havest Operations, Tractor and Forage Operations.
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Field Operations

This publication shows estimated costs of performing agricultural field operations.
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Harvest Operations

This publication shows estimated costs for combining, using grain carts, and hauling grain.
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Tractor Costs

Shows estimated costs for different sized tractors
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Forage Operations

This publication shows estimated costs for owning and operating forage machinery.
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Machinery Economics

Analyzes the cost of completing fieldwork and generates machinery costs.

Illinois Crop Budgets and Historic Returns

2025 Budgets For All Regions

This publication presents crop budgets for three regions in Illinois: northern, central, and southern Illinois. Central Illinois is further divided…

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2024 Budgets For All Regions

This publication presents crop budgets for three regions in Illinois: northern, central, and southern Illinois. Central Illinois is further divided…

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Costs to Produce Corn and Soybeans in Illinois—2023

The total of all economic costs per acre for growing corn and soybeans in Illinois.

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2025 Illinois Crop Budgets

Illinois crop budgets for 2025 are now available and, overall, projections are for lower production costs for corn and soybeans in 2025 compared with 2024. Break-even prices to cover all costs, including cash rent for farmland, range from $4.60 to $4.66 per bushel for corn and $11.01 to $11.56 per bushel for soybeans. Despite lower cost projections, current expectations for corn and soybean prices suggest negative farmer returns to corn and soybeans across all regions of Illinois in 2025.

Revised 2024 Illinois Crop Budgets

In this farmdoc daily article, we present revisions to the 2024 Crop Budgets for Illinois, highlighting changes from our January release for high-productivity farmland in central Illinois while discussing the more general trends across regions. We have revised corn and soybean prices down, while cost adjustments were mixed. Farmer return projections for corn are improved across regions, while soybean return expectations are improved for southern Illinois but similar or lower for other regions.

Revised 2024 Crop Budgets

Illinois crop budgets for 2024 have been revised from their initial release in August. The main revision in the budgets is a reduction in the corn and soybean prices assumed for both 2023 and 2024, resulting in lower return and profitability projections. Current farmer return expectations are negative for both corn and soybeans across all regions for 2024 for cash rented land at average cash rent levels, suggesting cost adjustments will be needed in 2024 and beyond.

When Creating 2024 Crop Budgets, Keep in Mind Family Living Costs

In today’s farmdoc daily article, we discuss the need to keep family living costs in mind when creating 2024 crop budgets. In 2022, the total noncapital living expenses of 1,329 farm families enrolled in the Illinois Farm Business Farm Management Association averaged $91,401, or about $7,600 a month for each family. This average was about 6% higher than in 2021. Another $7,432 was used to buy capital items such as the personal share of the family automobile, furniture and household equipment.

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Historic Crop Budgets

2023 Budgets For All Regions

This publication presents crop budgets for three regions in Illinois: northern, central, and southern Illinois. Central Illinois is further divided…

2022 Budgets For All Regions

This publication presents crop budgets for three regions in Illinois: northern, central, and southern Illinois. Central Illinois is further divided…

2020 Cost to Produce Corn and Soybeans in Illinois

The total of all economic costs per acre for growing corn and soybeans in Illinois.

2013 – 2016 Budgets For All Regions

This provides summary cost of production budgets for corn and soybeans. Results are included for all regions in Illinois.

2017 Budgets For All Regions

This publication presents crop budgets for three regions in Illinois: northern, central, and southern Illinois.

2016 Budgets For All Regions

This publication presents crop budgets for three regions in Illinois: northern, central, and southern Illinois.

Illinois Rental Fact Sheets

Share Rent Leasing Fact Sheet

Facts on Crop Share leases.
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Cash Rent Leasing Fact Sheet

Facts on Cash Rent leases.
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Variable Cash Rent Leasing Fact Sheet

Summary of statistical data on variable case rent leases in Illinois.
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Finance

Financial Characteritics of Illinois Farms

This report is based on data obtained from farm business records on Illinois farms. It is an annual summary of such records obtained from farmers cooperating with University of Illinois Extension, the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, and the Illinois Farm Business Farm Management (FBFM) Association.
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Credit Reports and Consumer Credit Scoring

Credit reports and scores are being used for many decisions such as credit determination and pricing; insurance pricing; government licenses; and employment.   It is important for you to check your reports to identify errors and detect fraud. It is also important to check your report to become an informed consumer of information being used to make decisions about you.
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Whole Farm and Other Reports

Summary of Illinois Farm Business Records

This report is based on farm income and earnings data on Illinois farms. It is an annual summary of such records obtained from farmers cooperating with University of Illinois Extension, the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, and the Illinois Farm Business Farm Management (FBFM) Association.
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Farm Income and Production Cost Summary

This report summarizes farm income and earnings for FBFM enrolled farms for 2012-2016.
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Farm and Family Living Income and Expenses

Summary of annual capital and noncapital family living expenditures and income and social security tax payments.
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Cost to Produce Beef in Illinois

Report with summary of cost to produce beef in Illinois.
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Cost to Produce Milk in Illinois

Report with summary of cost to produce milk in Illinois.
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Commodity Title Alternatives

January 11, 2022

Farmers will again have until March 15 to make commodity title program selections. Given the current high prices, commodity title payments are not expected from any program option...

December 12, 2018

On Monday December 10, 2018, the House and Senate conference committee released the conference report for the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018...

September 24, 2019

Farmers and landowners can now decide whether to receive commodity title payments from either Agricultural Risk Coverage at the county...

September 17, 2019

Farmers and landowners can now make the decision between farm programs, receiving commodity title payments...

November 5, 2019

The 2018 Farm Bill What-If Tool has been released (click here to download). This Microsoft Excel spreadsheet will estimate Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agricultural Risk Coverage at the county level...

October 29, 2019

ARC-IC (Agriculture Risk Coverage – Individual) has received less attention than ARC-CO (ARC – County) and PLC (Price Loss Coverage).  ARC-IC is operationally more complex...

January 7, 2020

Agricultural Risk Coverage at the Individual Level (ARC-IC) should be considered as a commodity title alternative for 2019 and 2020 in two special cases...

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The Gardner Payment Calculator provides estimates of expected payments and likelihood of payments for ARC-CO and PLC.  Payment estimates are provided for the program years from 2019 to 2023.  Users can select the state, county, and crop combination that they wish to consider.

If you are having trouble registering please view the faq or watch the video below.

This program calculates Agricultural Risk Coverage for County Coverage (ARC-CO), Price Loss Coverage (PLC) payments, and ARC at the Individual Level (ARC-IC). County yields and market year average (MYA) prices are brought in for a user-specified state-county-crop combination. Users then can change 2018 through 2020 county yields and prices to see ARC-CO and PLC payments under those yields and prices.

As an alternative to the executable tool you can download the spreadsheet here.

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farmdoc Daily: 2018 Farm Bill Articles

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2024 Low Returns, Prices, and the Federal Safety Net

A steep decline in prices across years has resulted in low to negative average returns to Midwest farms in 2023 and projected for 2024. Crop insurance programs are not designed to cover the risk of multi-year price declines and current commodity title programs are also expected to provide little relief for these low prices. Modifying commodity title programs to make them more market-responsive would aid in providing relief to farmers.

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Reviewing the Congressional Budget Office Score of the House Farm Bill

CBO cost estimates are typically critical pieces of Farm Bill reauthorization, while also providing useful transparency about complex legislation. Such is the case with CBO’s score of the Farm Bill reported by the House Agriculture Committee, exposing the likely increases in farm program payments juxtaposed against reductions in food assistance for low-income households. Either alone may present near-insurmountable barriers to Farm Bill reauthorization but combined sound the death knell for it.

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Cotton STAX and Modified Supplemental Coverage Option: Concerns with Moving Crop Insurance from Risk Management to Income Support

The Farm Bill version reported by the House Agricultural Committee would modify Supple-mental Coverage Option (SCO), a crop insurance policy that provides county-level coverage. Be-cause the modifications proposed for SCO would make it very similar to the STAX insurance pro-gram for cotton, we evaluate the historical performance of STAX to provide indications of how modified SCO could operate.

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Farm Bill Proposals to Enhance Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO)

Both the House and Senate versions of the farm bill include proposals to modify Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) insurance. SCO crop insurance provides county-level coverage from the selected coverage level on a farm-level crop insurance product up to a fixed maximum coverage level based on county-level results. This article examines the impacts of the SCO version proposed by the House for corn in McLean County, Illinois. Overall, increasing SCO subsidy levels seems questionable as a policy objective. At best, farmers risk management is improved marginally at high costs to the Federal government. A better focus would be on enhancing the protection of the underlying farm-level product.

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Spending Impacts of House Proposal for Commodity Title Changes

The House Proposal for the Commodity Title would significantly increase commodity title spending. Farmers with base acres of the Southern crops (peanuts, rice, and cotton) would have much higher increases in payments than farmers with base acres of those program crops grown in most of the country. The House Proposal would increase payments more for southern and Delta states than for other regions.

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Statutory Reference Prices and the Next Farm Bill

Both the House and Senate Ag Committees are considering increases to the statutory reference prices for some or all program crops. Increasing statutory reference prices would result in the largest increase in spending of the changes being discussed for the commodity title. Moreover, raising statutory reference prices will have disproportionate impacts across crops, increasing commodity program spending proportionally more for peanuts, rice, and seed cotton than for corn, soybeans, and wheat.

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Base Acre Updating in the Next Farm Bill

Voluntary base acre updates will not reduce discrepancies between base acres from current planting. Solving under-based issues with a voluntary update can occur, but Federal spending will increase. Mandatory updates can more effectively reduce differences between base and planted acres. Moreover, adding base acres with a mandatory update is possible at lower costs than with a voluntary update. However, mandatory updates will cause some farms and regions to lose commodity title support relative to current levels.

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Price Loss Coverage: Evaluation of Proportional Increase in Statutory Reference Price and a Proposal

The next farm bill is currently being debated, and one proposal receiving attention is to increase statutory reference prices by the same percentage for all program crops. A straight percentage increase in statutory reference prices will further advantage peanuts and rice while having little impact on soybeans. As a result, changes to other commodity title programs likely are needed. Soybeans, corn, and wheat would likely benefit more from improving ARC than from increasing reference prices.

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A View of the Farm Bill Through Policy Design, Part 4: ARC and PLC

In today’s farmdoc daily article, we continue our multi-part series presenting a view of the Farm Bill through perspectives of policy design. This article turns to the farm payment programs in Title I of the Farm Bill and explores the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) row crop programs. If the words of statutes determine the operation of policies and the distribution of benefits, then the PLC and ARC programs offer straight-forward examples.

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Farm Bill 2023: Another Perspective on Reference Prices and Base Acres

The calendar continues to countdown towards the scheduled expiration of the 2018 Farm Bill, but there have been no public indications that either the House or Senate Agriculture Committees have…

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Farm Bill 2023: The Intersection of Base Acres and Reference Prices

In today’s farmdoc daily article, we look at the intersection of base acres and reference prices. A mandatory base acre update that better aligns program payments with planted acres will impact states and crops to different degrees depending on where Congress established reference prices relative to market prices. It is at this intersection that the political collisions within the farm coalition occur as farmers, commodity factions, and production regions are pitted against each other.

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Farm Bill 2023: Planted Acres and Additional Pieces of the Base Acres Puzzle

In today’s farmdoc daily article, we take a further look into a potential mandatory base acre update in the 2023 Farm Bill. There are three basic arguments for requiring a mandatory base acre update — improved equity or fairness in the programs, better aligning of payments with reality and producing CBO savings to use as an offset. However, there are at least an equal number of reasons Congress would decide not to do so, some of them justifiable and others simply political or factional matters.

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