Grain prices have been under pressure all year, and economists point to several factors at play.
“I think to hit on what was discussed here at the Rural Economic Outlook Conference, it’s not the prettiest of days in the grain markets. Prices for pretty much all of our grains are under quite a bit of pressure. Production is outpacing demand. We’re hitting some headwinds with trade as we are looking at a various number of factors including a lot of competition from overseas markets. You’ve got some strength here in the dollar of late, and then obviously some port issues that are just compiling the export market and putting some pressure there, which wasn’t needed because there’s enough pressure here domestically. All told it’s not the rosiest of outlooks with regard to where we’re at with corn, beans, wheat, and all of our grain markets,” said John Michael Riley.
The farmland market has been under pressure, too. Asset managers say this year has been all about ups and downs.
“We’ve seen steady - at least at the beginning of the year - to a bit higher volume of sales opportunities. However, the latter half of this year has been a bit mixed. Things are starting to slow a little bit, due to what I would feel mostly to the retreat of external interest. We’ve just seen a bit of a protraction and a bit of a slowing in the volume of it. Many of the farms that had transacted this year have either sold directly to an operator or the operator has been involved, the actual farmer being the main buyer of many of the farms that we’ve taken care of in 2024 thus far,” said Tim Cobb.
Cobb has also seen more properties hanging out on the market longer this year. Average sell times range between one and two years.
