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Some farmers expect PLC reference prices to increase in the farm bill

Half of the farmers surveyed in the latest Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer expect Congress to raise Price Loss Coverage reference prices for corn and soybeans in the next farm bill.

Jim Mintert is the survey’s principal investigator and director of Purdue’s Center for Commercial Agriculture.

“And of course, those farm bill discussions are still ongoing, so that’s up in the air. It’s interesting that many people expect to see those reference prices go up because from a budgetary standpoint that’s probably going to be pretty difficult to do,” he says. “I’ll be interested to see how that shakes out over time and see how people’s perspectives might change on that, but clearly it’s coming out of the notion that production costs have risen pretty sharply and so there’s an expectation that there may be a need to raise the reference prices, but it’s going to be a challenge from a budgetary standpoint.”

Corn and soybean growers surveyed say the Crop Insurance Title is the most important component of the farm bill followed by the Commodity Title.

The Ag Economy Barometer is a monthly national survey of 400 U.S. agricultural producers.