Lower farmland values have long been considered a competitive advantage for Brazilian agriculture relative to U.S. agriculture (Colussi and Langemeier, 2026). However, strong farm profits, supported by periods of high…

The Policy Design Lab project recently released two updates to the web-based policy visualizations. The first includes further developments for crop insurance, allowing users to visualize data at the county level and by year and/or by crop. The second is a storyboard for soybeans, visualizing background information on soybean trade and utilization. The Illinois Soybean Association helped support the development of the soybeans storyboard. 

Using US land in Farms as the reference, foreign ownership interests amount to 0.67% of the total, and the remaining 99.33% is US owned. Forestland accounts for 88.5% while cropland, pasture, and other agricultural land account for 11.5%. The countries with the largest ownership positions in U.S. agricultural land are Canada and several Western European nations with primary ownership in forestland. Canada is the largest at 2.28 million acres (38%).

Since 2017, we’ve provided annual updates to a simple formula for calculating the average cash rent for a piece of farmland based on its average soil productivity and location within Illinois. Today’s article provides the latest in this series of updates to reflect the relationship between rental rates in Illinois for 2026, soil productivity, and location in the state. Individuals can apply this formula to their farms. It will provide an average cash rent based on data from the USDA NASS.

Artificial intelligence and data-driven tools are being applied to agriculture, from robotics, automation, and precision farming to predictive analytics and digital advisory tools (Aijaz et al., 2025; Edet and Chowdhury,…

Based on records from 1,927 Illinois FBFM farms, average returns to farm operators’ labor and management increased in every region of Illinois in 2025 compared with 2024. However, returns remained below the five-year average. Although yields and costs were similar to the previous year, earnings improved because commodity prices exceeded beginning-of-year inventory values and farmers received Farmer Bridge Assistance payments. Higher livestock prices also increased returns for livestock farms.