Quentin Connealy looks back at his crops from the seat of his tractor. Connealy, who has been farming full time for the past 15 years, said he has had to deal with increasingly extreme weather. (Photo courtesy of Quentin Connealy)

Out of the 22 covered commodities, Nebraska only has base acres under ten commodities. Sixty-five percent of Nebraska’s 15.89 million base acres are allocated to corn and 19 percent to soybeans.

This photo taken by Nebraska Extension Educator Jenny Brhel depicts the shriveled, lightweight corn kernels with minimal fill resulting from a rare combination of stressors during the growing season that created some of the toughest grain-fill conditions for corn in decades.

Outgoing Hamilton County Corn Growers President Mike Bergen is seen here with Dylan Rosier of Missouri Corn at a recent ethanol industry meeting in Missouri.

Grand Island native Casey Hoins has been hired as the Nebraska Soil Health Coalition’s first paid staff. As coordinator she will oversee the everyday operations of the organization and, as she puts it, “keep the train on the tracks.”

Partly cloudy or partly sunny? Indicators point to better farm income in 2025 than the previous year, but economists are still uncertain whether 2026 will continue that trend.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (USDA ERS) has forecasted that total costs listed per acre will continue to increase in 2025 and 2026. These increases will put more financial pressure on agricultural producers, especially will current market conditions.

A farmer combines the last strip of corn in a field north of Aurora as the sun sets last Tuesday. The corn harvest appears to be nearly complete in Hamilton County.

Beck’s Hybrids President Scott Beck (center) prepares to cut the ribbon on the company’s newest seed corn facility, the former Syngenta plant near Phillips, on Friday. With him are his father, Sonny, the company’s CEO, as well as other Beck’s officials and representatives of various community organizations.

Over the past 20 years, Nebraska Extension policy specialist Brad Lubben has been writing his Policy Report columns for Nebraska Farmer. In this article Lubben notes how much things have changed on the farm policy front — and how much the discussions and debates have stayed the same.