Revised estimates in the 2024 Farm Income Forecast still show agriculture taking a big financial hit this year. Danny Munch, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, says the slight adjustment still indicates farmers are struggling.

“In September, net farm income was expected to decline 4.4 percent to $140 billion across the farm economy, and in today’s update, the revision narrowed it slightly to a 4.1 percent decline, slightly higher to $140.7 billion for the year. It’s not that big of an increase, but still reflects a significant drop from 2022, so even though there’s not a lot of change between September and December, it still sort of demonstrates that agriculture is in the red this year in 2024.”

Munch says some sectors of the agricultural economy are faring better than others.

“There were slight upward adjustments for many of the livestock sectors, particularly cattle and eggs, those were adjusted upward. Some of your biggest crop sectors, they’ll take the biggest hit. Corn and soybeans anticipated down. Production expenses actually were adjusted down as well, so farmers expected to pay less in production expenses. The December report expects production expenses to fall by $8 billion in 2024.”

Difficult economic conditions combined with natural disasters make preparing for 2025 more difficult.

“Government payments in the report continue to be down 12.3 percent from last year. A lot of that is linked to lower ad-hoc disaster payments. We know a lot of farmers are still dealing with natural disasters from hurricanes and limited congressional action as well as outdated programs in the farm bill. So, this report really puts into high gear the importance for Congress to come together and help farmers through those natural disasters.”