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Commodity prices top concern for 2015

A poll of Farm Credit lenders across 15 states shows that more 61 percent of directors survey listed commodity prices as the greatest challenge facing farmers in 2015.

Jeff Swanhorst, chief credit officer for AgriBank says with potential for tighter margins, he anticipates a change in the way farmers operate.  “We’re going into what I call an agriculture efficiency cycle,” he says.  “Where producers will look across all their expenses and figure out various ways to reduce their costs per bushel of production.  Because they have to bring that in line with the commodity price environment that we’re in today.”

Another number that stood out in the AgriBank poll was the fact that just under 3 percent of directors surveyed were concerned about land rents for 2015.

As Swanhorst tells Brownfield, that number may be deceiving.  “What really comes out is that we are in the month of March right now,” he says.  “Most producers know what their rents are and there is really no time, at least for the 2015 crop year to renegotiate rents.  They really don’t view that is something they can deal with at this point.”

But looking ahead to 2016 and beyond, he says it will be more of a concern.

Most of the directors from the boards of the 17 Farm Credit lenders surveyed, are also farmers and ranchers.

The 15-state AgriBank District covers America’s heartland from Wyoming to Ohio and Minnesota to Arkansas and covers over 40 percent of all US farmland and more than half of US cropland.