Trying to Reason with Price Forecasts and Program Decisions

Commodity price expectations for the next five crop years are a big driver (farmdoc daily January 27, 2015) of the farm program decision. To assist with that decision, the Illinois-led coalition and the Agricultural Policy Analysis System (APAS) web-based tool are providing an additional price perspective that is based on Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) futures market prices for corn, soybeans and wheat. This article further evaluates corn and soybean prices for producer decision making; it builds upon previous discussions about price forecasts and the web-based tools (farmdoc daily August 7, 2014; May 13, 2014; February 4, 2015; February 12, 2015; February 17, 2015).