Agriculture

Andy Bensend on the math of growing and selling soybeans

Wisconsin Soybean Marketing Board member and Barron County farmer Andy Bensend details how changes in the price of soybeans affects bottom lines of farms that grow at scale and have inflexible costs.

By Zac Schultz | Here & Now

October 7, 2025

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Andy Bensend on how changes in the price of soybeans affects bottom lines of farms.


Andy Bensend:
If we talk about one acre, it's difficult — but let's talk about 1,000 acres. So, a typical grain farmer probably farms 1,000 acres. If we take 1,000 acres of soybeans, let's just, for easy math, say that the average yield is 50 bushels per acre. So, we have 50,000 bushels of soybeans of production on 1,000 acres in a given year. When the market price is $13, compared to the market price of sub $10 — let's just say $10 to $13, let's say there's a $3 drop in the value. That's $150,000 reduction in his gross income. That didn't change his fertilizer costs. That didn't change his feed costs or his seed costs. That didn't change his machinery costs, didn't change his labor cost, didn't change his trucking cost, didn't change any of his cost structure. It just took $150,000 off the top of 1,000 acres of beans.