Strong crop and livestock prices will help cushion an expected decline in farm income due to smaller government payments this year, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Chief Economist Rob Johansson said last week.

“We see an increase in prices, so cash receipts will increase, but not enough to overcome the amount of government program (payments) that will decline in 2021,” Johansson said in the first session of the Iowa Farm Bureau Economic Summit webinar series.

Government farm payments totaled $46.5 billion in 2020, largely because of new USDA programs designed to...