Ag Economists at Purdue Make Forecasts for 2017
Agricultural economists at Purdue University predict that next year will continue with falling farm incomes and grain price remaining at decade-long lows.
Agricultural exports are expected to recover somewhat after falling for two years, but not to the point of counterbalancing three years of bumper global grain stocks.
Corn prices for Indiana growers are expected to average $3.45 per bushel next year, ten cents less per bushel than in 2015. But soybean prices are expected to recover slightly at $9.50 to $10 per bushel due to lower output in South America and stable demand.
Meanwhile prices for 500-600 pound steers in Kentucky will average in the $120s per hundredweight next year, bringing prices below the break-even point.
These sustained conditions have been reflected in lower farmland values with an acre of Indiana farmland falling from a value of $8,129 per acre in 2013 to $7,041 per acre last year – a decline of 13.4 percent.
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