The patterns within crop agriculture have been incredibly persistent for the past few years. We’ve experienced a multi-year string of record production and record demand. Supplies have overwhelmed the demands and crop-ending stocks have been building, while prices worked their way down.

The early projections for the 2017 crop year show that corn and soybeans will continue to garner the lion’s share of acreage, as other commodities are still finding it difficult to compete for land. However, there seems to be more optimism in the markets for the upcoming year.

Over the past few months, the markets bounced off ...