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Farmers still see farmland as a good investment and they're more optimistic about future of ag exports.

March 5, 2019

6 Min Read
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By James Mintert and Michael Langemeier

The Ag Economy Barometer declined 7 points to a reading of 136 points in February, compared to 143 a month earlier. The modest decline puts the barometer back near the levels observed in October and November 2018 and is just 4 points below the level of February 2018.

Perception matters

The downward shift in the barometer was primarily the result of weakness in producers’ perception of current economic conditions on their farms as the Index of Current Conditions fell from a reading of 132 in January to 119 in February. Producers’ expectations regarding future conditions also weakened, but the decline was just 3 points, falling from 148 in January to 145 in February.

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Tariffs erode farmer confidence

The Large Farm Investment Index declined in February to a reading of 50 compared to 62 in January. The decline put the index back near its December 2018 level of 51, suggesting the positive impact of the second round of MFP payments on producer attitudes eroded quickly. Although producers’ perspective on making large investments fluctuates from month-to-month, when examined from a longer-term perspective it appears that farmers’ attitude towards making investments in machinery and buildings has deteriorated since the tariff battles erupted last summer.

Looking at the Large Farm Investment Index from January-June 2018, before the impact of the trade disputes disrupted commodity markets, it averaged a reading of 65. In contrast, the investment index averaged just 53 from July 2018 through February 2019.

Farmland values

Although producers were less inclined to view investments in machinery and buildings favorably in February compared to January, it did not spill over into their views on farmland values.

  • The percentage of respondents expecting lower farmland values five years from now on the February survey was 47%, virtually unchanged from January’s reading of 48%.

  • The percentage of farmers expecting lower farmland values 5 years ahead actually drifted lower to 11% from 13% in January, leaving longer-term sentiment regarding farmland values virtually unchanged when compared to a month earlier.

  • The percentage of farmers rating farmland as a good investment rose for the fourth month in a row to 68%.

  • The percentage of farmers rating farmland as a poor investment declined for the third month in a row to just 15%, which is the lowest percentage recorded since the question was first asked in fall 2015.

Growing your farm?

Each year, farmers are asked what their longer run plans are with respect to growth of their farm operation. Compared to a year earlier there are some interesting differences.

On the 2019 survey, 50% of the respondents said that they either have no plans for their operation to grow in size or that they actually plan to reduce the size of their operation as they plan to exit or retire from production agriculture. This was a noticeable increase compared to a year earlier when 39% of respondents indicated that they have no plans to grow or actually plan to reduce their operations’ size.

The percentage of producers that anticipate their farm growing by 5% or more per year decreased to 37% from 42% in 2018.

The shift in our surveys towards a larger portion of respondents indicating their farm business is not expected to increase in size could be related to the fact that some farms are experiencing financial stress. For example, in January, 25% of the farms in our sample indicated they were going have a larger operating loan in 2018 than in 2019 with 27% saying it was because they had to carryover unpaid operating debt from prior years.

Ag exports

Farmers became a bit more optimistic about the future of agricultural exports on the February survey as the percentage of farmers expecting ag exports to increase over the next 5 years rose from 63% to 67% and the percentage expecting exports to decline shifted marginally from 7% to 6%. The combination of producers expecting exports to increase with those expecting a decrease actually suggests that farmers’ overall expectations about future ag exports was the most positive it’s been since we first posed this question in May 2017.

Farmer concerns

Although farmers’ perspective regarding prospects for future growth in agricultural exports improved, they remain concerned about marketing and price risk in agricultural markets. When asked if marketing, financial or production risk was the most critical to their farm operation, respondents overwhelmingly said marketing risk (56%) was the most critical followed by financial (27%) and production (17%) risks.

Compared to results from February 2018, the last time this question was posed, farmers in February 2019 were more concerned about marketing risk and less concerned about financial and production risk. For example, the percentage of respondents ranking marketing risk on top climbed 14 points this year vs. 2018 whereas those choosing financial risk declined 6 points to 27% and those choosing production risk declined 8 points to 17%.

Soybean planting

We asked producers who planted soybeans in 2018 what their plans are with respect to soybean acreage in 2019. Over two-thirds of soybean growers said their acreage would be the same as in 2018 while 9% said they plan to increase their soybean acreage. However, 23% of growers in our survey indicated they plan to reduce their soybean acreage compared to last year. When we followed up and asked growers that plan to reduce soybean acreage, by how much they plan to reduce their soybean acreage, two-thirds (66%) of them said they plan to reduce acreage by more than 10%. This compares to a response rate to this same question in January 2019 (59%) and November 2018 (60%).

Farm Bill

To learn more about producers’ perspective on one of the key aspects of the new Farm Bill, we asked producers that planted corn in 2018 which commodity income support program they think they will choose when sign-up becomes available. Unsurprisingly, since many producers are still unfamiliar with the Farm Bill’s details, a majority (56%) of producers said they were uncertain regarding which program they will choose. However, it was interesting to note that among producers that have given program sign-up some consideration, producers were almost evenly split in their choice of the ARC-County (23%) and PLC (21%) programs. These results suggest there will be much more interest in the PLC program among U.S. corn farmers than under the 2014 Farm Bill. To help put this in perspective, more than 90% of corn base acres were enrolled in the ARC-County program under the 2014 Farm Bill.

Source: Purdue University/CME Group, which is solely responsible for the information provided and is wholly owned by the source. Informa Business Media and all its subsidiaries are not responsible for any of the content contained in this information asset.

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