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Survey: farmers concerned about input price inflation
More than half of farmers expect input price inflation to exceed 12 percent in the next year, according to the latest Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer.
Jim Mintert is the director of the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture.
“It’s not only the rise in input costs that’s worrying people, it’s the rate of change,” he says.
In June and July, 44-45 percent of farmers surveyed said they expected farm input prices to rise by four percent or less. In November, only eight percent of people surveyed felt that way. The percentage of farmers expecting to see input price inflation exceed 12 percent rose from 18 percent in June to 33 percent in October before jumping to 55 percent in November.
“That’s a very dramatic change in a short span of time,” he says.
Mintert says the question was modified in the latest survey to allow producers to choose even higher rates of inflation.
“This month we extended those buckets and allowed people to choose a bucket that said 16 percent or more and over 40 percent of people in the survey said they thought farm input prices are gong to rise by more than 16 percent in the coming year,” he says.
He says concerns about rising production costs are contributing to the weakness in farmer sentiment.
Audio: Jim Mintert
