Ag Economy Barometer
As I was traveling around the country in January and March the decline in producer attitudes or sentiment toward the agricultural economy was palpable.
Unfortunately, I didn't have a good way to measure this or formally take a poll of attitudes and sentiment.
Well, that is one problem we won't have to worry about anymore.
Purdue's Center for Commercial Agriculture and the CME Group recently unveiled their newly developed Ag Economy Barometer and it formally takes a reading on attitudes toward economic conditions in the sector.
It's not often that we get new data sources on the agricultural economy, and I am quite excited to see how ag sentiment evolves over time.
The Ag Economy Barometer is built on a monthly survey of agricultural producers and seeks to understand how farmers perceive current and future conditions in the agricultural economy. It builds the index off of a series of simple questions about the farm economy.
Basically, these questions seek to understand producer attitudes toward the current and future conditions in the general ag economy, farm financial conditions, and the ag investment climate.
The nationwide survey also asks a series of questions about commodity price expectations and other interesting topics.
You can find the details of the survey methodology (here), the current results (here), and the charts and tables (here).
To read Gloy's summary of the first results of the Ag Economy Barometer, published in May 2016, follow this link to his blog, "Agricultural Economics Insights."
