2021 outlook, Indiana Farm Report. 4-19-2021

Could look like for farmers.

Purdue's department of agriculture economics recently released the monthly (ba-rom-mi- ter)barometer.

The index of (both current conditions and future expectations looks promising.

"(nat( "one of the things that's very exciting with production of agriculture right now is there's a lot of optimism," optimism... that's what purdue university agriculture economics professor, michael langemeier, says a lot of farmers have right now...... "that optimism is due to strong prices, particularly corn and soybeans."

Brian scott, the owner of scott farms in delphi, was able to get in the field earlier this month..... "we already have one field in that we planted on april 7th, soybeans, which is i think the earliest we have ever planted soybeans."

Scott and his dad farm roughly 25-hhundred acres that consist of corn, soybeans, popcorn and wheat.

Brian "we kind of shoot for april 20th as a start date, so we're like on one field two weeks ahead of that, so if we can get done planting in the first and second week in may, that would be great."

Scott says it's pretty simple for them in the spring... "we're all no till pretty much, so in the spring it's pretty much just dad and i.

You just load the planted with seed and go."

Langemeir says it's important to keep 2020 in mind while we move forward... "20-20 was a pretty good year... not only because of prices, but we had some pretty good government payments from different government programs in 2020."

Langemeier says these payments in 2020 were primarily for the covid pandemic.

However, the farm bill is set up to provide funds (if crop yields and crop prices, (or both, are expected to be low "if we look at the last farm bill and we look as possible payments for 2021, there's not going to be any payments for 2021."

With no government payments expected for 2021, langemeier believes the net farm income will be strong due to high demand, which is seen in the market.

"because the prices are strong compared to the production cost, and there's no government payments in 2021, 21 looks like it's going to be a good year " langemeier also believes the optimism is there for the livestock industry.

"so there's some really good news out there in terms of economics for the production of agriculture."

And that's why he believes& nat( langemeier "2021 looks just as good, if not better," if you would like to read