Labor costs are one of the most prevalent costs on a farm. As such, farm managers need to evaluate whether they are utilizing labor efficiently and productively. One way to evaluate this issue is to use benchmarks created using data from similar farms. Labor benchmarks should include family and operator labor as well as hired labor. In this article, labor efficiency and productivity measures are illustrated for a case farm in west central Indiana and compared to benchmark targets.

Since the 2014 Farm Bill created the current crop safety net, planted plus prevent planted acres have increased for peanuts, rice, and soybeans among the nine program crops for which USDA computes cost of production. Acres of the other six crops have declined. While statistically significant in accordance with economic principles, private market net return explains less than half of the variation in percent change of acres for the nine cost of production crops between 2012-13 and 2023-24.

The first Trump Administration was supportive of the goal of setting the RFS conventional (ethanol) mandate near or below the E10 blend wall, mainly using small refinery exemptions (SREs). Since a second Trump Administration is now in place, it seems reasonable to assume there is the possibility of the conventional mandate again being written down. This raises the question of the likely impact of any future reductions in the conventional mandate on the demand for ethanol in the physical market.

Tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China have the potential to increase the prices paid by consumers and products for goods, services, and inputs from those major US trading partners. Fertilizers are such an input for US farmers. Price increases would likely be greatest for potassium (K) given the US reliance on imports, in particular imports from Canada. Impacts would likely be smaller for nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) fertilizers.

The USDA’s January 1 cattle inventory report places the total number of cattle and calves at 86.7 million head, near the upper range of pre-report expectations and down 0.6% from a year ago, as the industry continues into a sixth consecutive year of contraction within the cattle cycle. In general, the report confirms anticipated year over year drops across most inventory categories with fewer beef cows than any time since 1961 and the lowest total inventory since 1951.

2024 ad hoc economic assistance was framed in the context of low 2024 prices and high 2024 costs. Ad hoc assistance using 2024 values should best match ad hoc assistance with 2024 loss. The decision to use historical yields rather than 2024 yields results in coverage of 2024 loss that varies by crop even though coverage is the same using 2024 ad hoc assistance calculations. 2024 ad hoc assistance thus creates inequities among crops in its coverage of 2024 losses.