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Vilsack on lower farm income guess

The USDA projects net farm income to decline in 2014 to about 95-Billion dollars. The agency’s Economic Research Service says that’s a drop of almost 27% from their forecast last year for 2014 net farm income of 130-Billion dollars.

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says that “slight decline” – as he calls it – must be put in perspective.  He says, “There are little, if any, government payments involved in this projection because of the way in which the new Farm Bill was structured. We’ve obviously seen crop prices come down a bit which is reflected in this projection. But, to put in the proper context, if you take a look at the 10-year average of farm income, this is still well above that 10-year average, almost $11 Billion above the 10-year average.”

Adjusted for inflation, Vilsack says the net farm income projection for this year is still the seventh largest income projection for agriculture.

“While it’s not as great as last year’s record,” Vilsack says, “It’s still pretty doggone good.”  Vilsack says government payments earned this year but not paid until next year will show a bump in farm income in 2015.