Agriculture Macroeconomics

Ben Brown, agricultural economist with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute and extension at the University of Missouri, offers his take on the economy as it relates to the ag industry.

“And I would say here, as of late, there's been a lot of, not only questions about commodity markets, as people start thinking about, you know, moving their final old crop supplies, maybe even thinking about new crop pricing. You know, certainly a lot of questions around policy. But I've been getting more and more questions about the macroeconomy and just kind of where we see things going as it relates to consumer expenditures, as it relates to the employment market, and then, frankly, interest rates, that's one of the things that really can impact agriculture producers a lot, is how much they're paying for operating notes at the, you know, at the beginning of the year that they repay back at the end of the year. So a lot of questions about where interest rates could go in the months ahead.”

Brown expects an interest rate hike before May or June.

“Given the inflation data that we've seen both at the consumer level and at the wholesale level over the last couple of months, I just I have a really hard time seeing how the Fed can can just maintain interest rates where they're at.”

Ben Brown agricultural economist with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute and extension at the University of Missouri. With this Line on Agriculture Report, I’m Lorrie Boyer.