The lean years following collapse of the agricultural boom in 2013 are “raising concerns that the next few years could bring the biggest wave of farm closures since the 1980s,” says the Wall Street Journal in a story headlined, “The next American farm bust is upon us.” The Journal says “soon there will be fewer than 2 million farms in America for the first time since pioneers moved westward after the Louisiana Purchase.”
The Journal cites the rise of competitors to U.S. dominance of the world grain trade and the four-year streak of constrained income for farmers. Some are being pushed into debt and some are shutting down, it says. “No one just grain farms anymore,” Deb Stout, of Sterling, Kan., told the Journal. “Having a side job seems like the only way to make it work.”
Dan Basse, head of the research company AgResource Co. in Chicago, said the strong dollar impedes U.S. exports. “Mr. Basse said he believes it won’t be economically viable for the U.S. to export wheat within five years,” said the Journal.
Economists do not expect the current slump to be as ruinous as the agricultural recession of the mid-1980s, when the market for grain exports evaporated, land values plunged and interest rates skyrocketed.
There were 2.067 million farms in the United States at latest count, down by 18,000 from the previous estimate in 2014, says USDA. Farm numbers have declined by about 17,000 a year in recent years. USDA says there were 2.48 million farms in 1982, before the agricultural recession, and 2.18 million in 1992 as the sector rebounded.
The USDA will issue its annual Farms and Land in Farms report on Feb. 17. To read the 2016 report, click here.