Farmer sentiment bounces back

October provided a surprising pre-election bounce in farmer sentiment as the Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer climbed to 115, 27 points above the September index. The biggest driver of the sentiment improvement was an increase in producers’ confidence in the future. The Future Expectations Index jumped 30 points to 124. The Current Conditions Index also rose in October but by a smaller amount. With a reading of 95, the Current Conditions Index confirmed that farmers think economic conditions this year are worse than last year and the lowest since 2015-2016, which were the early days of a multi-year downturn in the farm economy. Producers this month expressed some optimism that economic conditions will improve and not precipitate an extended downturn in the farm economy. For example, the percentage of producers who expect bad times in the upcoming year dropped from 73 percent in September to 53 percent in October.