Farmers, especially large farm operators, have high hopes for Trump presidency, says DTN survey - Entrepreneur Generations

Farmers, especially high earners, have high hopes for the Donald Trump presidency, says the DTN/The Progressive Farmer Agricultural Confidence Index, Greg Horstmeier reports for DTN. The index, which consists of surveys of 500 farmers from December, produced an Ag Confidence Index of 98, up from 72 in August and 75.1 from December 2015. Confidence levels above 100 indicate optimism, indexes below 100, "which has been the case since March 2014, indicate farmers are pessimistic about their condition."

Farmers are surveyed three times per year, "before spring planting, just prior to harvest, and at year's end, to determine their opinions about their current economic situation and about that situation in the year to come," Horstmeier writes. "Those answers create a score for farmer's 'current condition,' how they feel about their businesses at the time of the survey, and a score for their 'future expectations' for the coming year." The index score is created from those two scores. (DTN graphic: Index results for all earners)

The current conditions score of 44.2 was the lowest since the index was created in 2010, Horstmeier writes. That's down from a previous record low of 56 in August 2016 and nearly half the 81.7 from December 2015. Reasons why are that "Commodity prices show little sign of more than minor price blips to cash in on," land and input costs show only minor relief and "acreage estimates for 2017, along with weather predictions, give little chance of a short U.S. crop."

The future expectations score was 127, Horstmeier writes. Numbers did vary based on how much farmers earned. Farmers at $250,000 to $499,999 income levels had a score of 129.9, farmers in the $100,000 to $249,999 range had a score of 112.6 and farmers with incomes of $1 million or more scored 79. Robert Hill, principal of Caledonia Solutions, and the creator of the index, said that suggests "that farmers in the lower income levels were more concerned with regulatory and other non-profit-related issues that a Trump presidency has promised to remove. Larger farmers, faced with a higher level of concern over land costs, employee needs, and commodity prices in general may put those worries ahead of the more emotional regulatory issues."

from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2iWpzmA Farmers, especially large farm operators, have high hopes for Trump presidency, says DTN survey - Entrepreneur Generations

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