About the Ag Economy Barometer

By Jim Mintert, David Widmar and Michael Langemeier Producer sentiment inched higher during April as the Ag Economy Barometer increased to 130. The latest result for the Purdue/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer, which is based on a monthly survey of 400 U.S. agricultural producers, was slightly higher than March’s 124 reading, but still well below January’s peak of 153 (Figure 1). When compared to a year earlier, sentiment among producers was much improved, up 23 percent in April 2017 from the April 2016 reading of 106. More broadly, agricultural producers’ sentiment since December 2016 has been notably more positive than…

By Jim Mintert, David Widmar and Michael Langemeier The Purdue/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer launched publically in May 2016 with the release of survey results from an April 2016 survey of 400 U.S. agricultural producers. The barometer’s public launch came following six months of data collection used to establish a base period for the barometer and its two sub-indices, the Index of Current Conditions and the Index of Future Expectations. On the one-year anniversary of the Barometer’s public launch, we reflect back on some things we’ve learned since the beginning of data collection in October 2015. Commodity prices are important…

James Mintert, David Widmar, Michael Langemeier   The Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer slipped to 124 in March, marking the second month in a row that producer sentiment dropped below the prior month’s level. Recent weakness in the Barometer – which is based on a monthly survey of 400 agricultural producers from across the U.S. – followed a sharp improvement in producer sentiment from November through January. Although producer sentiment fell in both February and March, producers remain more optimistic about the agricultural economy than during all but the last two months of 2016 (Figure 1).     30…