On the last Friday of March, the Farmdoc team at the University of Illinois held a webinar discussing the ARC-PLC or farm safety net decision which is due at your local FSA office on April 15. In it, University of Illinois agricultural economists Nick Paulson and Gary Schnitkey made the case that farmers should choose ARC County for soybeans and probably make the same decision for corn. This was before USDA’s Prospective Plantings and Grain Stocks reports were released. During the webinar, Schnitkey was asked if the Prospective Plantings report corn acreage figure came in larger than expected – which it did by about a million acres – would that then push him to change from “leaning” towards ARC County for corn to choosing PLC?

“Rather than state the acres, I’m going to state the thing that I would look at which is a futures market reaction to that. Right now, the December 2025 futures (corn) contract is trading at $4.40. If after the report on Monday comes out, you see that go down 20 to $0.30, then you would be more fully looking at the PLC. And again, we’re not thinking much about soybeans changing much with that report.”

The corn market, despite the unanticipated million-acre increase, did not break after the report. The agricultural economists at the University of Illinois stand by their recommendation of leaning towards ARC County for corn and simply choosing ARC County for soybeans.