{"id":7869,"date":"2024-08-06T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-06T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/?p=7869"},"modified":"2024-08-12T19:21:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-12T23:21:00","slug":"farmer-sentiment-improves-despite-financial-performance-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/2024\/Q3\/farmer-sentiment-improves-despite-financial-performance-concerns","title":{"rendered":"Farmer sentiment improves despite financial performance concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. \u2014 Three broad-based measures of farmer sentiment improved in July as the Purdue University\/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer<\/a> index rose 8 points to 113, the Index of Current Conditions increased by 10 points to 100, and the Index of Future Expectations at 119 was 7 points higher than a month earlier. Despite declines in corn and soybean prices from mid-June to mid-July \u2014 Eastern Corn Belt cash prices fell 11% and 5%, respectively \u2014 farmer sentiment improved in July. Responses to the individual questions attribute this positive shift to fewer respondents reporting worsened conditions compared to a year ago and a decrease in those expecting negative future outcomes. This month\u2019s Ag Economy Barometer survey was conducted from July 15-19, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The July survey showed that high input costs remained the biggest concern for 34% of farmers. Additionally, the risk of lower crop and livestock prices continues to worry producers, with 29% citing it as a top concern, up from 25% in June. Reflecting the signals from the Federal Reserve that interest rates have peaked, only 17% of respondents cited rising interest rates as a top concern, down from 23% last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Farm Financial Performance Index dropped 4 points in July to 81, 6 points lower than in July 2023. The decline in financial performance expectations reflected farmers\u2019 worries about weakening commodity prices and high input costs following improvements in the May and June indices. Although production costs for principal crops, including corn and soybeans, have decreased year over year, output prices have also fallen, raising the possibility of a cost-price squeeze for U.S. crop producers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite concerns about farms\u2019 financial performance, the Farm Capital Investment Index rose 6 points in July to 38, though it remains weak, at 7 points lower than in July 2023. This improvement was due to a slight decrease in the number of producers who believe it\u2019s a bad time to make large investments, which dropped from 80% in June to 75% in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeclines in crop prices point to lower producer incomes this year, so the increase in optimism was somewhat puzzling,\u201d said James Mintert<\/a>, the barometer\u2019s principal investigator and director of Purdue University\u2019s Center for Commercial Agriculture<\/a>. \u201cFewer producers citing rising interest rates as a primary concern for the upcoming year corresponds with the modest improvement in their perspectives on capital investments, but respondents continue to express hesitancy to make large investments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

July saw a small improvement in the Short-Term Farmland Value Expectations Index, rising to 118 from 115 in June. This was driven by more respondents expecting stable farmland values over the next year. At the same time, the Long-Term Farmland Value Expectations Index dropped 6 points from June to 146, with fewer farmers expecting values to rise over the next five years and more anticipating they will remain unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As nationwide discussions begin for the 2025 crop year\u2019s farmland leases, the July survey revealed that nearly three-fourths (72%) of crop farmer respondents expect cash rental rates to remain roughly the same as in 2024. Among the remaining respondents, views were nearly evenly divided, with 15% anticipating a rise in rates and 13% expecting a decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the Purdue University Center for Commercial Agriculture<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Center for Commercial Agriculture<\/a> was founded in 2011 to provide professional development and educational programs for farmers. Housed within Purdue University\u2019s Department of Agricultural Economics, the center\u2019s faculty and staff develop and execute research and educational programs that address the different needs of managing in today\u2019s business environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About CME Group<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the world\u2019s leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group<\/a> enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data \u2014 empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates<\/a>, equity indexes<\/a>, foreign exchange<\/a>, energy<\/a>, agricultural products<\/a> and metals<\/a>. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex<\/a> platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world\u2019s leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC (\u201cS&P DJI\u201d). \u201cS&P\u00ae\u201d, \u201cS&P 500\u00ae\u201d, \u201cSPY\u00ae\u201d, \u201cSPX\u00ae\u201d, US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor\u2019s Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones\u00ae, DJIA\u00ae and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and\/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About Purdue University<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue\u2019s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap \u2014 including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative \u2014 at https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/president\/strategic-initiatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n Writer:<\/strong> Morgan French, mmfrench@purdue.edu<\/a>
Source:<\/strong> James Mintert, 765-494-7004, jmintert@purdue.edu<\/a>
Media contacts:<\/strong>
Aissa Good, Purdue University, 765-496-3884, aissa@purdue.edu<\/a>
Dana Schmidt, CME Group, 312-872-5443, dana.schmidt@cmegroup.com<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. \u2014 Three broad-based measures of farmer sentiment improved in July as the Purdue University\/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer index rose 8 points to 113, the Index of Current Conditions increased by 10 points to 100, and the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":8181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"department":[6],"source":[29],"purdue_today_topic":[],"coauthors":[306],"class_list":["post-7869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","department-agriculture","source-purdue-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7869"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8196,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7869\/revisions\/8196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7869"},{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=7869"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=7869"},{"taxonomy":"purdue_today_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/purdue_today_topic?post=7869"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}