(NAFB) Agricultural economists from the University of Illinois have updated their coming year’s corn and soybean crop budgets. Initially released in September, the updated budgets reflect higher new crop corn and soybean prices at $4.30 per bushel for corn, up by $0.05, while soybeans were adjusted down $0.05 per bushel to $10.20.
University of Illinois Economist Nick Paulson says this adjustment improves projected corn returns by $10 to $15 per acre. The soybean return drops $3 to $4. Paulson made his comments in a Farmdoc video posted to YouTube. He says in the video that this does not change the income situation much. It adds a third year of losses on cash-rented land starting with the calendar year 2023, thru 2024, and including 2025. Paulson says these negative return projections are due to low corn and soybean prices relative to the high production costs producers are expected to continue to face.
Roughly speaking, the breakeven corn price on cash-rented ground is $4.60 a bushel. It’s a dollar less than that if the farm is owned free and clear. For soybeans, those numbers are more like three-and-a-half-dollars apart. We’ll call it eight dollars and $11.50.
