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Ag lending specialist sees more farmer exits

An ag lending specialist suggests a rising number of farmers are leaving the industry.

Ashley Arrington with Ag Resource Management (ARM) says working capital began to erode on many operations last year as balance sheets weakened.

“We had a much higher number than expected of farmers that we expected to come back when we were monitoring our retention ratio, ones that were just exiting farming. It’s not that they were leaving ARM to go to somewhere else, they were actually exiting the occupation of farming in general.”

She tells Brownfield some of the exits were because of farm transitioning.

“Maybe they were starting with a Beginning Farmer loan at FSA, but the current generation was exiting. But we also saw some who were just liquidating and (were) just done, selling equipment (and) land and getting out. And some were forced exits.”

Arrington says it’s the highest number of exits she’s seen in at least ten years.