One hundred dollar bill in pile of cornFarmers by and large don’t love receiving government payments in the place of marketplace revenue. But in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, those payments have been critical to sustaining farm incomes in 2020. The widespread availability of vaccines open the door to the eventual end of the pandemic, and it’s got some now speculating what that will mean to net farm incomes in the coming year. Net farm incomes surged in 2020 based mostly on government payments that will eventually go away as society gets back to “normal,” and that has some analysts pegging overall net farm income about 18% lower in 2021 than this year’s record level. Improving crop and livestock market prices could make up for the year-over-year NFI shortfall, but farmers should watch input costs and capture market rallies to ensure adequate incomes in the new year. See more.