“Concern about the war’s impact on input prices and input availability on their farming operations was paramount in the minds of producers responding to the March survey and was a major factor in this month’s decline in sentiment,”

said James Mintert, the barometer’s principal investigator and director of Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture.

The March survey provided the first opportunity to ask producers how they expect the war in Ukraine to affect U.S. agriculture. Producers overwhelmingly said they expect input prices to be most affected (63% of respondents), followed by crop prices (33% of respondents), and livestock prices (3% of respondents). Responding to a related question, 19% of respondents chose “availability of inputs” as their biggest concern in their farming operation this year, which was equal to the percentage of producers who chose “lower crop and/or livestock prices” as their biggest concern.

Diving deeper into producers’ expectations for farm input prices in the upcoming year, 57% expect farm input prices to rise by 20% or more, and 36% think input prices will rise by 30% or more. And, just over one-fourth (27%) of producers say they’ve had difficulty purchasing crop inputs for the 2022 crop season. Producers report that supply chain problems persist across a wide range of inputs, with herbicides, fertilizer and farm machinery parts posing the most problems.

Producers continue to say that they expect their farm’s financial performance to decline in 2022 compared to 2021. The March Farm Financial Performance Index, which asks producers whether they expect their farm’s financial performance in 2022 to be better than, worse than or about the same as in 2021, was up slightly (4 points) at a reading of 87 but remains 30% lower than a year earlier.

“When producers think about how their farm will fare financially in 2022, it’s clear they do not expect commodity price strength to offset the dramatic rise in farm production costs they are experiencing,”

Mintert said.

Producers do not view this as a good time to make large investments in their farming operations as the Farm Capital Investment Index fell again in March. The index was 6 points lower than a month earlier and 59% lower than in March 2021 when it was near its all-time peak. In a pair of follow-up questions, 62% of respondents said their plans for farm machinery purchases in the upcoming year are lower than a year earlier, which is the most negative response to that question since May 2020. When asked a similar question about their plans for farm building and grain bin construction, 68% of respondents chose “lower,” which was the most negative response received to that question since its first inclusion in a barometer survey in May 2021.

Supply chain problems continue to haunt both the farm machinery and construction sectors and are one of the reasons producers don’t view this as a good time for large investments. For example, 42% of producers this month said their machinery purchase plans were impacted by low farm machinery inventories, consistent with industry reports that major machinery manufacturers are experiencing order backlogs.

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“It’s unfortunate that it sometimes takes an incident or close call to motivate producers to put in place farm safety measures,”

said Marcel Hacault, executive director of the Canadian Agriculture Safety Association (CASA), a non-profit organization formed in 1993 to respond to health and safety issues in agriculture.

“It’s even more unfortunate if they don’t take action to prevent incidents from happening again,” he said.

The survey, conducted from Feb. 10-21, found that seven in 10 producers (72 percent) have had an incident resulting in an injury or close call on their operation at some point in their lifetime, and a quarter (24 percent) of producers report having had one within the last year.

It also showed that producers who have had a safety incident on the farm are no more likely to access safety information or develop a safety plan than those who haven’t had an incident. However, a growing number of producers recognize their work is not done safely all of the time.

“Awareness is usually the first step toward taking preventative action,”

Hacault said.

“It’s not only obvious dangers that pose risk. There are often hidden hazards that can harm you, an employee or a family member.”

The survey showed only one in 10 producers (14 percent) surveyed indicated they have a written safety plan for their operation and 70 percent of those with plans felt it is effective in preventing injuries.

Hacault said a safety plan serves as an inventory of the various hazards that exist on the farm and sets out practices and procedures to prevent close calls or injuries from happening. It only takes one moment of distraction, fatigue, or complacency to change a person’s life forever.

Seeding and harvest are among the most dangerous times of the year since many producers are working long hours and are racing against the clock to get the job done.

“Producers have to remember that the most valuable asset on any farm is the people who do the work,”

Hacault said.

“By taking care of ourselves and those around us, we are contributing to our long-term success in both business and life.”

Producers can access safety information or training from a variety of organizations, including industry associations, provincial agriculture safety associations, agriculture suppliers, government, and non-profit agencies, such as CASA, Red Cross, and St. John Ambulance.

FCC is a long-time supporter of CASA and its safety awareness initiatives, including Canadian Agricultural Safety Week. It is also a proud supporter of other farm safety programs, such as the Back to Ag Program that supports the cost of adaptive technology for farmers that have experienced a traumatic injury.

A total of 1,239 FCC Vision panelists involved in agriculture production from across Canada participated in the study. With a 78 percent response rate, the margin of error for this survey is +/- three percent at a standard 95 percent confidence level.

Source: Farm Credit Canada

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