Farmers in the Midwest and Great Plains will see decreased incomes this year, as the U.S. agriculture industry will likely have a down year compared to the last two.
Net farm income will fall 4.4% in 2024 — or $6.5 billion less than in 2023 — which is a much rosier projection than the U.S. Department of Agriculture initially predicted in February.
Amid slowing demand for crops across the globe, commodity prices for key American grains, like corn, soybeans and wheat, have fallen.
“The farm economy is in a downturn relative to what we have experienced in 2022 and 2023, which was kind of a boom in agriculture,” said Joe Janzen, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
