Farmer Optimism

Farmer Optimism

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Crop Producer Confidence Rebounds Following Record Harvests. Agriculture producer optimism about prices and the future has returned after a downturn prior to this year’s record harvests, according to the latest DTN/The Progressive Farmer Agriculture and Agribusiness Confidence Index. I wanted to find out how that index was calculated so I called DTN Markets Editor Katie Micik, who is director of the DTN Agriculture Confidence Index. “We polled 500 farmers and asked five questions. We asked them to rate their current input prices as good bad or normal and then we asked them, 12 months from now, do you think they will be better, the same or worse? Then we repeat that with farm income. Do you think it will be better, the same, or worse next year? And then we compile all that data into our index and get a value for the present situation and expectation. It’s interesting how it shows trends over time. In August index value was the low 100's for the first time ever. It was 99.8 which is down at the pessimistic reading of the scale. What really dragged that down was that farmers expectations for the year ahead were quite low. Like 87. So their present expectation was about 10 points lower than it was in the spring. So when you look now at our overall index values it is positive. The value for the present situation went down even more but expectations for the year ahead went up by nearly 10 points.
Previous ReportAgriEdge Excelsior
Next ReportFind a Job