Macon County farm operators earned about $20.3 million in 2024, down 47 percent from a record $38.1 million the year before, according to federal estimates of county income.
The figures come from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, which measures farm proprietors' income, the net income of farm owners and operators, for every county. The 2023 total was the highest for Macon County in the bureau's records, which go back to 1969. The numbers are not adjusted for inflation.
The 2024 drop hit every county around Macon County, and most of them harder. Of the seven bordering counties, five lost a larger share of farm income than Macon County did:
- Shelby County: down 97 percent, to about $528,000 from $18.9 million.
- Knox County: down 62 percent, to $7.7 million from $20.1 million.
- Monroe County: down 54 percent, to $21.6 million from $47.3 million.
- Adair County: down 53 percent, to $5.5 million from $11.7 million.
- Linn County: down 53 percent, to $10.7 million from $22.9 million.
- Chariton County: down 42 percent, to $26.8 million from $46.1 million.
- Randolph County: down 31 percent, to $22.2 million from $32.3 million.
Statewide, farm proprietors' income fell 37 percent, to $1.71 billion from $2.72 billion.
The bureau's measure counts the value of what farms produced in a given year, not the cash that changed hands. Grain sold from a prior year's crop is left out, and crops still in the bin are counted at market prices. The bureau assigns farm income to the county where a farm has most of its land, based mainly on U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates.
Even after the decline, Macon County's 2024 farm income was close to its 10-year average of about $19.8 million. It made up about 2.5 percent of the $803.9 million in total personal income the bureau estimated for county residents in 2024. That total still rose about 2 percent from 2023, as wages and salaries, government benefits, and investment income grew.
The county-level estimates run a year behind. The bureau released its 2024 county figures Feb. 5 and plans to publish 2025 figures Dec. 2.
State figures for 2025 already point to a rebound. The USDA's Economic Research Service estimated Missouri's net farm income, a related but separately calculated measure, at $4.61 billion in 2025, up 34 percent from $3.43 billion in 2024. Government payments to Missouri farms nearly tripled over the same period, to about $997 million from $334 million, according to the service's Sept. 3 release.
Nationally, the service forecast net farm income at $158.4 billion for 2026, down 2.6 percent from 2025, or 5.5 percent after inflation. It projected direct government payments to farms would rise about 70 percent in 2026, while production expenses climb 4.5 percent.
The Macon Chronicle reported Oct. 14 that the county's average cash rent for non-irrigated cropland slipped to $135 an acre in USDA's 2026 survey. On Oct. 19, it reported on a free University of Missouri tool that compares federal farm safety-net payments ahead of the Dec. 11 enrollment deadline.