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Prospects and coping strategies during the ag economy downturn

Navigating the downturn in the ag economy.

Ohio State ag economist Seungki Lee says farmers continue to face tight margins.  

“Outcome prices are going down,” he says. “That’s kind of explaining most of this margin squeeze phenomenon. We are seeing that pretty robust input price rigidity, so we are seeing input prices softening, but not as rapidly as commodity prices.”

He tells Brownfield growers need to know their cost of production. 

“Based on that, they can do some pre harvest marketing, so locking in a portion of future crops that they even haven’t planted yet,” he says.

Lee says the downturn is part of the economic cycle, but maintaining and expanding export markets could help the ag industry turnaround.

AUDIO: Seungki Lee, Ohio State University