With February behind us, there’s a lot hanging on the mind of seed companies and farmers alike: higher prices, inflation, the upcoming planting season. It causes a lot of uncertainty, and that uncertainty is reflected in this month’s Ag Economy Barometer reading from Purdue University and the CME Group. The Barometer dipped 5 points to a reading of 125 in February, according to a release.
According to the group, farmers’ perspectives regarding current conditions on their farms and expectations for the future weakened.
“Increased concern over the risk of falling output prices, rising interest rates and uncertainty over the future growth of U.S. agricultural exports is weighing on producers’ minds,” said James Mintert, the barometer’s principal investigator and director of Purdue’s Center for Commercial Agriculture, in the release.
Famers surveyed pointed to concerns of higher input costs, rising interest rates and lower output prices as their biggest concerns for 2023.
In addition, since 2019 the survey has asked producers about their expectations in agricultural exports for the upcoming five years — this February, only 33% of respondents said they expect exports to increase. For Mintert, that weakened confidence in future agricultural export growth is contributing to the weakened sentiment reading.
Seventy-two percent of producers also said it was a “bad time” to make large investments on their operations — of those who said it was a bad time to make investments, 45% responded it was because of an increase in prices for farm machinery and new construction, while 27% said it was because of rising interest rates.
Make sure to read the full report to learn about other concerns growers have as 2023 continues.
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