Interest charges on farm operating loans rocketed higher the past two years and are likely to continue creeping up for another year or two, according to Chad Hart, Iowa State University (ISU) crop markets specialist.

“In two years, I’ve watched that interest cost per acre double. It is sizeable,” Hart said Jan. 28 at the Iowa Farm Bureau Young Farmer Conference. “There’s no way really to avoid this. You have to manage it.”

According to ISU’s estimated costs of production, average interest on preharvest variable costs has risen from about $9.50 an acre to $21.17 for corn and from $6.41 per acre to $14.43 for soybeans since ...