The American Relief Act of 2025 authorized $10 billion in economic assistance payments to partially offset economic losses suffered by producers of eligible commodities during the 2024 crop year.  The…

The USDA’s monthly WASDE reports sometimes appear uneventful, but they systematically track agricultural commodity supply and demand changes. Despite some seemingly quiet updates, these reports provide important periodic insights into crop production, use, and stocks across various agricultural markets.

As farms continue to get large and the value of farm machinery increases as well, the impacts on first year depreciation become larger. Many times, farmers trade in equipment to purchase new equipment, and the financial outlay is the difference between the two values. However, since the full amount of the trade values shows as a sale on the tax return, careful planning is needed to understand the impact on the tax return.

Agricultural banks demonstrated higher profitability, with an average Return on Assets of 1.07% compared to 1.03% for non-agricultural banks, and greater operational efficiency, reporting an average Efficiency Ratio of 65.80% versus 67.70% in the fourth quarter of 2024. Performance varied by bank size, with smaller agricultural banks (less than $100M) achieving the highest Net Interest Margin (3.65%) and dominating their asset size category in agricultural loan market share.

President Trump is seeking to negotiate an end to the Ukrainian-Russian War. Should the fighting stop, land in the area of fighting will likely return to production, probably over several years. Because combined Ukrainian and Russian crop output and harvested land has declined only slightly during the war, downward pressure on crop prices is more likely than not as the land returns to production. Corn will likely be the most impacted individual crop since its output has declined the most during the war.

South American countries, which together produce about 55% of the world’s soybean supply, are on track to set a record in the 2024-25 crop season, despite localized drought challenges in some regions. Brazil’s soybean production is expected to reach an all-time high, Argentina’s production is projected to remain steady compared to last season, while Paraguay’s soybean output is forecast to decline from last year’s record harvest.