Agriculture Index

DTN/The Progressive Farmer Agriculture Confidence Index found that crop and livestock producers' overall confidence fell to a new low in March. While producers remain optimistic about their present situation, they're pessimistic about future expectations. DTN Markets Editor Katie Micik: "Most producers right now think that current input prices are bad. Most of the time people think that input prices are going to get worse. I think what that indicates is that there is some kind of a move to say, okay things are so bad now on input prices that they can only get better. When we look at farm income, there are a lot of people who say that it is normal this year. If you look at USDA's forecast, they really took a 40% cut year after year of what the forecasted farm income would be. That is kind of a tough spot for farmers especially on the crop side where corn prices really don't look like they are going to be enough for some people to be able to pencil in a prophet at this point. That is tough for producers to bear. On the livestock side, what is interesting there is that where the pessimism comes from a livestock side is not about right now. Right now livestock producers are feeling pretty good based on the answers to how they think current input prices and current farm income come in. Where their pessimism comes is when they look a year ahead, they think things are going to get worse. Most likely from the income side with beef herd expansion and expansion in the hog and poultry sectors, it is only a matter of time before the prices paid for their animals decline." A year ago, producer confidence stood at 106.9 then fell 99.8 in August 2014