Farm Income Projected to Be Higher Due to Direct Payments

USDA Chief Economist, Seth Meyer provides some of the notable news from the USDA’s February farm income forecast

“Cash farm income per calendar year 2025 is forecast at $193.7 billion that's up about 22% relative to 2024 in nominal dollars. Net farm income is forecast at $180.1, billion up 29.5% from the prior year. I think the next important thing to note is cash receipts from commodities sales are actually expected to decrease by 1.8 billion from 516.8 billion in 2024 to 515 billion in 2025, so you're talking about a pretty modest percent increase, but those cash receipts from commodity sales essentially flat. So one of the key elements here is direct government payments are forecast to increase by $33.1 billion when you look at net cash farm income and net farm income, it's not from cash receipts. We're seeing that jump in farm income, it's from direct government payments. You get some improvement in net farm income as total production expenses are forecasted to decrease.”

Meyer says he does expect a slight increase in cotton cash prices since last year was such a low year. And when it comes to the livestock sector,

“We're flat to higher for dairy broilers and hogs,” with a little easing of egg prices and cattle prices expected.