Jason Aldean topped the country charts with his single “Burnin’ It Down.” Pitcher Madison Bumgarner led the San Francisco Giants to a World Series title. And the commodity price boom fueled by ethanol finally stalled.

The year was 2014, and the resulting commodity price slide did not abate until 2020.

“Corn prices were about $5 [per bushel] at the start of the year,” says Jim Knuth, senior vice president for Farm Credit Services of America. Many farmers expected prices to zoom upward.

“No one at that time wanted to sell $5 corn,” Knuth says. “By the end of the year, the price went to around $3.70 [per bushel], and there was a lot of [unsold] inventory on hand.”

Sound familiar?

In 2024, nearby corn futures decreased from about $4.65 per bushel in January to about $4.10 in mid-September. Soybean prices endured even a steeper drop, heading from about $12.75 per bushel nearby futures in January to about $10.20 per bushel nearby futures in mid-September.

“There wasn’t a lot of preharvest selling early on,” Knuth says. “Some farmers didn’t even sell all of their 2023 crop.”

Like 2014, this has resulted in unsold corn inventory amid massive ending corn stockpiles. Estimated ending stocks increased more than 13% from the 2023-2024 marketing year, the highest in six years, according to a September USDA report. The USDA also expects a bumper U.S. soybean crop of 4.586 billion bushels, with ending stocks of 550 million bushels.

This has led the USDA to predict total 2024 crop receipts to plunge $27.7 billion from 2023 ones, led by a 22% drop in corn receipts and a 16.7% slide in soybeans.

What to do

You may feel like the sun is setting on your farm. Still, a look back at 2014 shows that farmers who fared best acted quickly, Knuth says.

“Those who made adjustments the soonest positioned their operations to better weather the whole cycle,” Knuth says. “It doesn’t mean they eliminated their losses, but they absolutely reduced their losses. It gave them the financial structure and working capital to have more staying power.

“Everything was on the table and negotiable. This was key in making it through the last cycle. We think it's going to be a key to [surviving] this cycle, too.”

Not all is gloomy.

Beef cattle profits continue to roll. The latest corn and soybean market downturn also is spurred by oversupply, not demand, says Eric Weuve, an Iowa State University Extension farm management specialist.

Demand downturns — such as those due to livestock number declines — take longer from which to recover. Supply downturns can quickly snap back, given a drought or other adverse event, Weuve says.

Interest rates also are set to decline. “Going into 2025, farmers should get modest relief to their line of credit,” Knuth says. “It will certainly help, but it will not fix a cost-structure issue.”

Meanwhile, farmers are caught in a viscous cycle of lower crop prices amid stubbornly high expenses.

“Generally speaking, 2023 was the most expensive crop we ever planted,” Knuth says. “The second most expensive crop we ever planted was in 2024. As we look forward into 2025, input costs really have not come down the way we would want or hope. Clearly, input costs are going to be a challenge in 2025, especially when compared to the commodity prices that we see today.”

“Unfortunately input prices aren’t something we have much control over,” adds Brent Renner, a United Soybean Board director who farms near Klemme, Iowa. “It sometimes takes a year or more [following a commodity price decline] for them to level out.”

Still, chin up.

“The good news is that agriculture has always adjusted 100% of the time,” Knuth says. “It's just a matter of how long that adjustment period will be. But we’ll get through it.”