Meyer Expresses Concerns About Farm Financial Health Moving Forward

The USDA's top economist says the financial health of the farm sector is good, but the direction it's going is a bit worrisome. USDA Chief Economist Seth Meyer said as he looks ahead he's concerned that farm sector debt continues to climb faster than farm assets.

"Assets increasing 1.3%, debt increasing 2.9% and equity increasing 1%," Meyer noted. "So what we got is we got debt increasing faster than assets or equity, giving us debt-to-equity and debt-to-asset ratios as high as they've been since about 2002."

Meyer went on to say they've been trending up each year for the last decade.

"We are back up to having sectors risk on insolvency forecast the highest level since 2002."

But he said even that risk is pretty low. Debt-to-asset ratio this year forecasted just over 14%. And Meyer said while that's still far below the 22% during the mid-1980's farm crisis, it's a figure he's like to see turn around.

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