West Lafayette, Indiana
November 5, 2008
A farm economy that's swung from
unparalleled optimism to uncertainty in a matter of months might
resurrect fears of a crisis similar to one that occurred two
decades ago.
While people may be seeing similarities, there is more to the
story than meets the eye, said two
Purdue University
agricultural economists.
Although commodity prices are cascading in response to the
global financial crisis, farmers should not expect a return to
the tough times of the 1980s, said Mike Boehlje and Chris Hurt.
Comparing then to now, the economists said the agriculture
industry is in a much stronger financial position today. Present
economic fundamentals also are more favorable, indicating
farmers are likely to withstand the economic downturn, they
said.
Boehlje and Hurt make their case in "The Financial Crisis: Is
This a Repeat of the '80s for Agriculture?" The paper can be
read on the Purdue Extension Financial Crisis Information Web
page at
http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/news/financial_crisis.asp.
High grain prices placed farm incomes on a record-setting pace
earlier this year. That all changed, as bank failures threw
world economies into a tailspin.
"Agriculture is not immune to the financial slowdown," Boehlje
said. "Grain prices declined by almost 50 percent from June to
October 2008. The almost $4 decline in corn prices during a
four-month period is unprecedented in both speed and magnitude.
Farmers and agribusiness managers are clearly unnerved by this
rapid deterioration."
Like today, the agriculture industry enjoyed a prosperous period
in the 1970s before the bottom fell out in the 1980s, Hurt said.
Economic data and history point to a much more severe period 20
years ago, however.
"We're in a much different situation in agriculture today than
we were in the 1970s boom and then massive bust in the 1980s,"
Hurt said. "One difference is interest rates are much lower this
time. In the '70s we had moderate interest rates, but then we
saw them move up in the '80s, with the prime rate above 20
percent as we started to fight inflation.
"So we ended up in the '70s with a lot of debt. In fact, as we
look back at the amount of debt, for every $100 of assets that
farmers had then they had $22 of debt. Today, for every $100 of
assets farmers have only $9 of debt."
Recession quickly set in during the '80s because too many
farmers had too much debt, Hurt said.
"High interest rates led to enormous debt servicing. It was very
costly with falling prices of corn, soybeans and wheat," he
said.
To pay their debts, farmers began selling land.
"When you force more supply onto the market, it causes the price
to drop more sharply than it probably should," Hurt said. "We
don't see that happening this time."
Farm incomes also have been higher in recent years than in the
years leading up to the '80s recession, Boehlje said. In 2000
dollars, United States net farm income averaged $51.8 billion
per year between 1976 and 1979.
"In contrast, real net farm income has averaged about $63
billion a year for the past five years," he said. "These recent
strong incomes were earned primarily by grain and crop farmers,
while livestock producers had much lower incomes and even
significant losses during much of 2007 and the first half of
2008."
Another difference between then and now is the way land was
purchased.
"In the previous period we looked at, a number of farmland
purchases were 100 percent debt financed, because the lender was
willing to take a collateral security interest in property
currently owned by the farmer - property that had significantly
appreciated in value over the previous three to five years,"
Boehlje said. "When income and debt servicing problems surfaced,
lenders demanded payment or foreclosed on the property because
of borrower defaults, and the dramatic downturn in asset values
began."
Conversely, land values have risen sharply in recent years but
there has not been the years of inflationary investing that
helped build the speculative bubble in land values in the late
'70s and very early '80s, Boehlje said.
"Farmers are financing mostly with their own equity capital,"
Hurt said.
The months to come could be bumpy for agriculture, and farmers
will need to be financially flexible, the economists said.
"If these much lower grain prices that we now experience
continue, then we're going to have to see cost of production
also adjust on the downside," Hurt said. "So the recognition
that there can be dramatic changes, both in the crop prices as
well as cost, tells us as business managers that we want to be
careful about getting caught in making major commitments, either
to our cost for next year or to our revenues, because the
implications are just enormous." |
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