2025 Annual Report

Thanks for checking in to see what we’ve been up to at the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture (CCA) during 2025.  One thing we’ve learned over the last decade is that U.S. farmers and agribusiness staff like to receive information and education in a wide variety of formats, and we’ve responded by providing in-person programs, webinars and videos, podcasts, short web postings, occasional long-form articles, decision aids, and tools!  I’ll provide some key highlights from this past year and in the remainder of the report you’ll find details about the diverse programming we provided during the year.

The Purdue Top Farmer Conference was held on January 10^th in West Lafayette.  Topics addressed included economic and policy changes, land acquisition and machinery management strategies, farmland markets, extracting value from new technologies, and strategies to reduce your cost per bushel.  Over 275 farmers and agribusiness professionals registered for the conference with a near 50-50 split between in-person and online attendance.  The Center also provided a Learning Center program focused on positioning a farm for long-term success at the Commodity Classic held in Denver, Colorado in early March.

The Center has increased emphasis on web site delivery in the last year.  The CCA web site contains information on numerous topics including agricultural outlook, cash rents and land values, crop basis tool, crop budgets, financial statements and analysis, leasing arrangements, risk management, and transition planning.  Web views totaled almost 193,000 in 2025.  The most viewed publications in 2025 included information pertaining to cash rents and land values, crop basis tool, crop budgets, custom rates, and soybean exports.  Since launching the Purdue Commercial AgCast, we have developed over 200 podcast episodes.  AgCast had over 54,000 views in 2025. Many of the AgCast episodes are released as YouTube video podcast also. The three highest viewed podcasts containing information pertaining to the impact of long-term tariffs, soybean exports, and the complexities of production agriculture.  Rather than releasing information in a monthly newsletter, the Center now sends an e-mail after the posting of each new article or podcast.  This e-mail, Commercial AgNews, currently has approximately 8,600 subscribers.  In addition, the Center has approximately 2,150 X followers; 1,150 You Tube subscribers; and 670 Linked In followers.

As the nation’s only monthly survey of commercial ag producers, the Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer (AEB) provides insights into producer sentiment while also providing opportunities to learn more about producers’ reactions to contemporaneous events affecting the agricultural sector.  Each month during 2025 the Center published an Ag Economy Barometer report summarizing survey results, posted a short YouTube summary video and an in-depth podcast interpretation of the current month’s barometer survey, all accessible via the Center’s website.  Approximately 13,900 subscribers receive the AEB’s monthly e-mail blast.  The barometer is widely reported in both the agricultural and business press, is the subject of numerous media interviews each month, and the AEB index lives on the Bloomberg Terminal.

Thank you for your interest in and support of the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture.  As always, if you have suggestions for future programs or research, feel free to contact us.