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Purdue and CME Group partner to measure health of the ag economy

Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture and the CME Group are partnering to produce a monthly, nationwide measure of the health of the US ag economy.

Jim Mintert, director of the Center says a score of 100 on the Ag Economy Barometer would mean the sentiment is unchanged.

The Center and the CME Group released its first public survey on Tuesday and results showed a slight improvement for April compared to the established base period from October 2015 to March 2016.  “With the rebound of corn and soybean prices that took place during the month of March and continuing into April the sentiment among farmers increased pretty markedly,” he says.  “The index increase from 85 in March to 106 in April.”

But, he says overall the general outlook still conveys a lot of concern about the health of the ag sector.

Mintert says 400 agricultural producers across the country are surveyed each month and represent the vast majority of the food production in the US.  “About 53 percent of the people in our monthly survey produce corn and soybeans,” he says.  “With smaller percentages to all the major ag enterprises like beef, pork, and dairy – based on the Census of Agriculture.”

He tells Brownfield this is the only ongoing measure of the economic health of the ag industry.  “Both of us felt like there was an opportunity there to provide some information to the sector,” he says.  “It would be useful to producers and useful to the ag input supply sector.”