Quick recovery unlikely for U.S. agriculture

Recent reports by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and our institute mostly confirm bad news for the farm sector: Commodity prices and farm income are down, and a quick recovery appears unlikely. Grain prices for crops harvested in 2016 are projected to drop to the lowest level in a decade. Corn and wheat prices for this marketing year might be less than half the levels of just four years ago. he market update prepared by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) indicates the combination of record world crops and slower demand growth has resulted in a sharp increase in the amount of grain in storage, putting severe downward pressure on crop prices. The story isn’t much better for animal agriculture. University of Missouri colleagues project feeder cattle prices might fall 29 percent this year. Hog, chicken and milk prices also are down sharply from the record levels set in 2014.