T-R FILE PHOTO Marshall County farmers have faced tough challenges in 2020, but have some hope after seeing crop prices rise. That hope extends to the 2021 crop.

Marshall County farmers are seeing better crop prices than a year ago which brings some positive news during an exceptionally difficult year.

The 2020 growing season was unique for many reasons, but in terms of crop prices this year it was very rare according to Steve Johnson, farm management specialist with Iowa State University Extension.

“We’ve had what we call a counter-seasonal rally. We tend not to typically see these — one in every five or 10 years,” he said.

Cash corn prices are about 70 cents to $1 higher than this time last year while soybeans are about $3 higher.

There are a few contributing factors according to Jeff Thatcher, commodity marketing analyst for Mid-Iowa Coop in Liscomb. The destruction of crops from the derecho lessened the supply, but demand simultaneously experienced an increase.

“We’ve seen demand come back from China on both corn and soybeans,” Thatcher said. “We expected it from soybeans but it’s a little surprising on corn. The current prices are — I guess — in an area where we think they should be.”

The situation is far from what could have been expected six months ago. With many people telecommuting, the demand for gasoline and ethanol dropped.

Thatcher said if work-from-home is here to stay, corn is likely to suffer.

“Throughout the year we continued to get reports that have been friendlier and friendlier,” Thatcher said.

There was an expectation of a wet crop earlier in the year, but Thatcher said corn benefitted from a late season drought and soybeans received timely rain.

The scope of the derecho’s long-term impact on cropland is still not clear and likely will not be for another year.

“Farmers may be limited to growing soybean even on acres that were supposed to be continuous corn,” ISU Extension Field Agronomist Meaghan Anderson said. “Additionally, the rebuilding and clean-up of damaged structures, woodlands and landscaping for farmers, and others, will continue into 2021 and beyond.”

Even the crop that was harvested in central Iowa presented challenges.

“A number of fields were determined to be not mechanically harvestable. For those fields that were harvested, some were very difficult to harvest due to the downed corn,” Anderson said. “Significant yield losses came from the damage the derecho caused, as well as harvest losses from inability of combines to pick up corn.”

She said the derecho influenced some of the crop moisture concerns.

“We had a lot of concern that the crop would be high in moisture due to the lack of movement through the canopy of flattened corn fields,” Anderson said. “In some cases, farmers were harvesting overly dry corn.”

The high prices have lessened the blow a little for farmers who lost crops in the derecho.

“Most central Iowa farmers are cautiously optimistic with these higher prices that have resulted over the last four months. They feel good about higher prices for the ’21 crop,” Johnson said. “Now their concern is primarily around the dry soils.”

“Those impacted are very dependent upon crop insurance coverage,” he said. “That’s probably 80 percent of Marshall County. A lot of farmers surprisingly have more ’20 income than they planned on. USDA came out with the magic number; gross crop revenue is up $9 billion over last year. I would say farmers feeling pretty good about income. I would say they’re cautiously optimistic in ’21.”

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Contact Joe Fisher at

jfisher@timesrepublican.com