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Farm income expected to rise

 

An associate professor with Ohio State University says farm income is expected to increase this year for the first time in four years.

Ani Katchova says there are many reasons for the forecasted increase.

“Commodity prices have stabilized and, especially from last year, we’re expecting to see some sale of inventory,” she says. “This is mixed news for some of the commodities- crops are stable to slightly increasing, whereas we see a large improvement to livestock.”

She tells Brownfield farm assets and equity is also expected to improve.

“Even though farmers are in more financially-stressed conditions, we don’t see a lot of increases in some of the indicators of financial stress,” she says. “We are seeing very low delinquency rates and bankruptcy rates.”

Katchova says there’s more good news for the industry –  farmland values appear to be holding steady.

“We’re seeing stability in farmland values during 2017 so no further declines, which is good news compared to where we were last year and the year before,” she says.

But, she says there are still challenges. She says expenses for farmers are expected to continue to rise along with higher costs of hired labor, fuel, and interest. But, she says the overall outlook of the ag industry is looking up.

Audio: Ani Katchova, Ohio State University 

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