What are the off-farm incomes? Given the high average age of the American farmer, I would guess social security and retirement funds along with commodity futures trading which many do. Younger farmers often provide services to others, eg hay cutting, fence building, irrigation installation, etc. But I'd like to se a true ranking of income sources.
Why are U.S. farmers optimistic? This is easy to answer. They expect Trump to give them a lot of money in subsidies. They expect farming will be cross subsidised by income from tariffs.
I am happy that the sentiment in the farming community is still in the positive shade. I was a bit worried for those folks. Who wants to see people's livelihood harmed even if they are (generally) Trump supporters. It is obvious their opimism is coming from somewhere, and, thanks to you, we have an idea where farmers are optimistic, i.e., they have adapted and have income from other farming activities that are making up the income loss.
when the apparent economics do not add up, 'hope' and 'belief' could be one answer... another answer is there are economic factors that are unknown to the market
What are the off-farm incomes? Given the high average age of the American farmer, I would guess social security and retirement funds along with commodity futures trading which many do. Younger farmers often provide services to others, eg hay cutting, fence building, irrigation installation, etc. But I'd like to se a true ranking of income sources.
Why are U.S. farmers optimistic? This is easy to answer. They expect Trump to give them a lot of money in subsidies. They expect farming will be cross subsidised by income from tariffs.
I am happy that the sentiment in the farming community is still in the positive shade. I was a bit worried for those folks. Who wants to see people's livelihood harmed even if they are (generally) Trump supporters. It is obvious their opimism is coming from somewhere, and, thanks to you, we have an idea where farmers are optimistic, i.e., they have adapted and have income from other farming activities that are making up the income loss.
when the apparent economics do not add up, 'hope' and 'belief' could be one answer... another answer is there are economic factors that are unknown to the market