The USDA’s August Crop Production report, released on August 12, 2026, included the first survey-based yield forecast for soybeans of the season. This article presents an independently constructed, condition-based forecast of the 2026 U.S. soybean crop and compares it to what USDA recently reported. The national gap between our condition-based model and USDA’s August survey is modest in both the corn and soybean crops.

Over the past ten years, average annual capital purchases on Illinois grain farms have exceeded average annual net farm income, with government payments included in income. Generally, income from other sources has been used to fund farm-level capital purchases, much of which has been allocated to machinery. Over time, machinery purchases then have resulted in growing machinery depreciation costs on a per-acre basis.

Bankruptcies have peaked and ebbed in relation to movements in farm income and government payments. Over the past decade, they have tended to cluster in specific states or regions, Wisconsin and Arkansas for example, and in specific sectors, particularly dairy, rice, cotton, and beef cattle. Bankruptcies are more likely to have a greater impact on specific types of borrowers, in particular beginning farmers and those qualifying for limited-resource programs or debt set-aside measures.

A structural shift in global grain markets that started in 2007 had major impacts on both crop and livestock prices as well as enterprise net returns. Did this structural shift result in differing rates of return for crop and livestock farms? This article uses aggregate commodity price indices for crop and livestock enterprises, and rates of return for beef, dairy, diversified, and crop farms derived from the FINBIN database to address this question.

The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee appears to have driven another nail in the coffin of the Farm Bill. It remains to be seen if it was the final…

USDA’s August Crop Production report, released August 12, 2026, provided the first survey-based corn yield forecast of the season, based on USDA’s Agricultural Yield Survey, in which producers report their…