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2020 turning out ‘better than expected’
A Midwestern Farm Credit official says 2020 is turning out better for farmers than anyone could have predicted earlier in the year.
“Between the government payments, the rally in grain prices, and the export demand for proteins, we saw that a lot of producers were actually able to turn the corner and get through 2020 in fairly good shape,” says Bob Campbell, senior vice president with Omaha-based Farm Credit Services of America.
Campbell says grain producers benefitted the most.
“We’re doing renewals now and getting early financials, and they seem to have done pretty well. Overall, it’s turning out quite a bit better than we expected when we were looking at this in August.”
Campbell says the livestock sector also saw a good recovery after the big challenges in spring and early summer.
“It seems like they’re doing better now. But for me, the wild card still is the cow-calf producer. They’ve had a couple tough years, generally, in our footprint—with the way the markets were in early fall, the calf prices were still a little weak. So we’re anxious to see how they ended up for the year—and if they decided to retain some ownership and go a little longer to see if these markets come back in their favor.”
FCSAmerica covers Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.
