Individual US Crop Inputs Post 2014 Farm Bill

By Carl Zulauf and Gary Schnitkey et.al

The high cost to produce US crops remains a topic of concern and key farm policy factor in 2025.  This article examines the change in cost by input category since the 2014 Farm Bill authorized the current set of commodity title programs.  Percent increase has been highest for chemicals and machinery & equipment.  For chemicals, the increase is more likely due to more use than higher prices.  For machinery & equipment, higher prices are the more likely reason.

Data and Procedures

Each year USDA, ERS (US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service) reports a per acre economic cost to plant barley, corn, cotton, oats, peanuts, rice, sorghum, soybeans, and wheat.  These nine crops will subsequently be referred to collectively as the cost of production crops.

Per acre cost for individual input categories were calculated for 2012-2013, the two years prior to the 2014 Farm Bill, and for 2023-2024.  Economic cost includes opportunity cost, specifically for unpaid family labor and owned land and machinery & equipment.  Also collected was the annual US price index for crop input categories reported by USDA, NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service) in QuickStats.  The last complete year for input prices is 2024.

Cost per acre for an input category for a crop was multiplied by US acres that USDA, NASS reported as planted to the crop in that year, then summed across the nine cost of production crops.  The result is the combined cost for an input category to produce the nine crops as a group for the year.  Combined cost is arguably more important than cost for an individual crop because crop rotations are common and farmers adjust the mix of crops in response to differential changes in cost across crops.  A 2-year period is used because the most common field crop rotation is arguably, corn-soybeans.  Percent change in cost and prices from 2012-2013 to 2023-2024 were computed.