By Jason Vance

The National Agriculture Statistics Service has released the annual Farm Production Expenditures report, which NASS’s Lance Honig says tries to cover everything that the name implies.

“What our farmers and ranchers spend on an ongoing basis to make their operation work,” Honig said. “Inputs into livestock or crop related operations, fuel costs, seed costs, livestock feed and everything in between.”

The report covered the 2024 calendar year. Among the findings farm productions expenditures totaled $477.6 billion, which was down $4.3 billion, just shy of one percent from 2023.

“That actually represents the first year-to-year decline we’ve seen since 2018,” Honig said.

The report broke down the top categories of expenditures with number one being feed costs, followed by farm services, labor and livestock/poultry and other related expenses.

Farm crop expenditures were only down one-tenth of a percent year-over-year while livestock farm expenditures were down 1.8 percent.

“In general the largest contribution to these expenditures remains in the Midwest region with about 31.2 percent of those total expenses, followed by the Plains, the West, the Atlantic and South,” Honig said. “If we break it down even further and look at it state by state California continues to lead the way in terms of total expenditures with about $48.6 billion, followed closely by Iowa, Nebraska, Texas and Minnesota rounding out the top five.”