McLean County Farm Bureau

FarmDoc Daily

• U.S. and Brazil Soybean Competitiveness: Farm-Level Costs and Returns
  Brazil’s rise as a dominant force in global soybean markets has become a central concern for U.S. producers, with 44% indicating in January they were “very concerned” about the competitiveness of U.S. soybean exports relative to Brazil. Since surpassing the U.S. as the world’s largest soybean producer in 2018, Brazil has continued to expand its […]
• Historical Cropping Patterns for Illinois Grain Farms
  Over the last ten years, when we look at the costs of producing corn versus soybeans, it has been more profitable economically to produce soybeans than corn, except for 2021 and 2022. This explains the general downward trend in the percentage of corn acres in crop rotations in Illinois. Over the last 30 years, we […]
• Revisiting the Basis Risk when evaluating SCO and ECO
  Higher subsidy rates for SCO and ECO in 2026 increase the attractiveness of their usage and the potential for replacing some RP coverage with county-level coverage. However, switching from farm-level to county-based coverage introduces basis risk because farm losses do not precisely mimic county losses. In regions where the basis risk is low, such as […]