Government Payments Drive Farm Income Boost

The USDA is forecasting a significant rise in farm income for 2025, with net farm income projected to increase by 26.4 percent and net cash farm income by nearly 19 percent when adjusted for inflation. However, NDSU Ag Finance Specialist Bryon Parman noted that this increase isn’t driven by stronger market prices or production. “I was expecting the projections for this year to be significantly worse than that,” Parman said. “And then when you dig into the numbers, it’s significantly higher than I had anticipated.” The boost, he explained, is largely due to government payments rather than improved commodity prices.  Parman warned about the heavy reliance on federal payments. “There’s a lot of uncertainty in the next few weeks, months politically and trade-wise, that clouds things up even more than usual,” Parman said. With spring planting already an uncertain time for farmers, Parman noted the additional economic and policy unknowns make it even harder to plan for the future.