Missouri river bottom south of Sioux City, IA | Sentiment will vary from one location to another based on different challenges that each could have endured since the down turn from 2013. In 2014 this river bottom area got hit severely with 60 plus inches of rain during the spring and summer. Thousands of acres did not produce anything. Federal crop insurance kept guys from losing a lot but it did not put positive numbers on their balance sheets.
2016 planning season was wet and costly as a lot of famers, including me got to plant whole fields of corn in April, May and June. That tends to raise your planting cost when you have to plant it three times over in the same field. That is something we fight year after year on this river bottom ground.
A large number of acres are going into CRP for 10 to 15 years. For the three counties here, there is about 40,000 acres of CRP that went in since 2014. Apply $300 per acre of input cost on those acres for 10 years. That is 120 million that will not be spent on crop inputs in the next 10 years. I don’t think implement dealers or crop input suppliers think this development is positive for their business. Some landlords have chosen to pull ground out of cash rent or crop share leases and put it into CRP. I can’t blame them as they own the ground and are taking advantage of a government program that pays more than cash rent or crop share. Kind of a double hit for the local area when landlords that put land into CRP and live outside the area. There is no money spent locally for crop inputs plus the CRP money they get is not spent here either.
Seven out of the eight land sales here were settling trust or estates. I have not heard of any forced land sales so at this point that is a positive note.
Tom N.
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Farmer sentiment skyrocketing higher
