▶ April 2025 Farm Economy Update
Paul Mitchell provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the farm economy in spring 2025, focusing on net farm income, crop margins, and farm financial information.
Economics, Budgets & Financial
Economics and Budgets Tools
The Custom Rate Guide is a summary from a mail survey which collected rates paid by Wisconsin farmers who hired custom work, custom operators and farmers who performed custom work, and machinery dealers who rented out equipment for field operations including manure services, tillage, planting, fertilizer & chemical application, harvest operations, and machinery rental.
The UW Crop Enterprise Budget Tool can be used to help estimate the cost of production for your crops. A printable version of this resource is also available.
For farmers who practice cover cropping or reduced tillage, use the Crop Budget Analyzer to capture a snapshot of the immediate financial expenses and income that a farm may experience in using practices such as cover cropping and reduced tillage, particularly in grain crop systems.
Articles
Farming on a Tight Budget: Balancing Innovation and Sustainability
Tight budgets are becoming the norm due to a combination of volatile commodity prices, rising input costs, labor shortages, and weather-related impacts. Amid these pressures, the push to innovate and adopt sustainable practices has not slowed—in fact, it is getting stronger.
Wisconsin Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) Performance
This article provides a brief overview of Wisconsin Supplemental Coverage Option and discusses its performance from 2015 to 2023.
2025 ARC and PLC Decision Tool
In recent marketing years, the payouts from ARC and PLC programs have shown variability, largely influenced by market and local conditions. This variability can make it challenging for individual farmers to choose the most suitable option for their specific area and crop. To assist with this decision, Extension has developed a What-If Tool to help Wisconsin producers analyze potential payments at various price levels and county yields.
Field Notes Episode 24: Generational and Organic Farming Transitions
Transitioning a farm with the bumps and successes along the way. Darren Eichelkraut farms on a 50 cow organic dairy with his family, including his dad, Junior Eichelkraut, right next to Paoli, Wisconsin. Darren and Junior tell us the story about how Junior transitioned the farm to organic, allowing Darren to come back to and eventually take over the farm.
Historical ARC and PLC Payouts in Wisconsin
The UW-Madison Division of Extension Farm Management Program has developed interactive tools, referred to as payout visualization tools, to assist Wisconsin producers in comparing ARC-County (ARC-CO) and PLC payments by county, commodity, and irrigation type.
Wisconsin Agricultural Land Prices 2024
Each year, UW-Madison Division of Extension compiles an Agricultural Land Price Report which discusses the changing price of farmland in Wisconsin.
New Tool Helps Farmers Make Conservation Decisions
Using datasets from large numbers of farms, Dr. Jeff Hadachek created a model that allows farmers to input their own costs to see how their bottom line would be affected if they implemented specific conservation practices. Read more and access the tool here.
▶ Watch: 2025 Crop Input Cost Expectations
In the October 23, 2024 Badger Crop Connect webinar, Dr. Paul Mitchell — a professor in the UW–Madison Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, extension state specialist in cropping and environmental management economics, and director of the Renk Agribusiness Institute — discussed expectations for 2024 crop input costs. Dr. Mitchell explains projected input costs through current fuel, technology, and overhead expense data.
▶ Watch: Fall 2024 Corn and Soybean Outlook and Situation
In the October 23, 2024 Badger Crop Connect webinar, Dr. Brenda Boetel — professor and department chair in the UW–River Falls department of agricultural economics and extension state specialist in agriculture economics and marketing — discussed current market trends and data related to corn and soybean pricing in the 2024/25 marketing year. Dr. Boetel gives recommendations for the beginning of the 2024/25 marketing year for corn and soybeans as well
▶ Watch: Soil Health Decision Tool
In the October 23, 2024 Badger Crop Connect webinar, Dr. Jeff Hadachek — assistant professor in the UW–Madison department of agricultural and applied economics — discussed his ongoing economic research related to cover cropping and water quality issues. Dr. Hadachek revealed a Soil Health Decision Tool, which allows farmers to simulate and experiment with several variables to determine if agronomic practices, like cover cropping, produce an economic return on investment by improving soil health.
▶ Watch: Corn and soy situation and outlook
The June 26 Badger Crop Connect webinar featured Dr. Brenda Boetel, Professor and Department Chair of Agricultural Economics, and Extension Agricultural Marketing Specialist at UW–River Falls. The grain markets are off of their February 2024 lows; however, prices still remain lower than what farmers have experienced the previous few years.
