In an Tuesday article detailing the expected 14-year-low in U.S. farm income, Bloomberg News spoke with Illinois Farm Bureau Vice President and Knox County Board member David Erickson about the state of corn and soybeans.
Erickson, who previously served as president of the Knox County Farm Bureau, told Bloomberg he will probably lose money by planting corn and soybeans this year. He tells WGIL stockpiles of corn and soybeans from last year will likely result in an unprofitable 2016.
“What I tried to point out to them was that when you do your budget, you can’t always budget a profitable scenario,” Erickson says. “But you do things throughout the year, continue to try to figure out ways to reduce your costs and overall costs, not just costs that you had for your crops.”
Erickson says he and other farmers will continue to look for other opportunities to market crops and can count on some revenue from federal crop insurance.
The Bloomberg interview gave Erickson the opportunity to talk about about agriculture in Illinois, “where a significant part of our economy and obviously one of the leading, producing states for corn and soybeans in the country.”
