U.S. Agriculture: Review and Prospects
回顾了1994年美国农业的生产繁荣与收入下降，分析了作物和畜牧业的困境，并展望了1995年出口市场和饲料价格对农业的影响。
An old maxim holds that too much of a good thing can be bad for your health. That maxim pretty well sums up U.S. agriculture's predicament in 1994. The nation's crop producers harvested record crops, with bins overflowing onto Farm Belt streets. Livestock producers sent record amounts of meat to the nation's meat counters. The abundance of food, however, brought the industry back to its traditional problem--record supplies bring low prices. Hence, farm income declined in 1994. Fortunately, most farmers and ranchers had healthy balance sheets to cushion the fall. In the year ahead, the farm economy should stabilize. With bigger grain stocks overhanging the market, crop prices probably will stay low in 1995. Export markets should lend some support to crop prices, however, as recovering economies in Europe and Asia boost world food demand. Also, relatively low feed prices will brighten livestock prospects, particularly if cattle and hog prices continue to recover from 1994 lows. A new farm bill will be written in 1995 and, while the new bill will have little if any effect on the farm economy in 1995, the major overhaul of farm programs that now seems possible will have a lasting impact in years to come. A PRODUCTION BOOM IN 1994 In many respects, 1994 was a record year for the nation's farmers. Crop producers harvested the biggest corn and soybean crops on record. Livestock producers sent more beef, pork, and poultry to market than ever before. But much to farmers' chagrin, the production boom quickly drove down farm prices to the lowest levels in years. The result was a sharp fall in farm income, cushioned only by the industry's strong balance sheet. A DOWN YEAR FOR FARM FINANCES Farm financial conditions turned down in 1994, although returns were quite mixed across the industry. Most crop producers had strong profits after harvesting record crops, a welcome turnaround from the weather-damaged crops the previous year. Livestock producers, on the other hand, had a difficult year as cattle and hog prices sank to levels not seen in recent years. The nation's net cash farm income, which nets cash expenses from cash receipts, was $51 billion in 1994. That was down nearly 13 percent from 1993 and was the lowest since 1986 (Chart 1). (Chart 1 omitted) Adjusted for inflation, cash income was down 14 percent. A sharp drop in livestock earnings and government payments to crop producers accounted for most of the drop. Net farm income, an alternative income measure which takes into account changes in farm inventories, was almost unchanged from 1993 due to the huge 1994 harvest, which refilled farm granaries to overflowing. The district's net farm income in 1994 fell even more than in the nation due to the importance of the livestock industry in the region. District livestock producers bore the brunt of the income drop in 1994. In the cattle industry, most feedlots began the year operating at a small loss, which quickly widened to $100 to $150 per head in early summer when big meat supplies triggered sharp slide in fed cattle prices (Chart 2). (Chart 2 omitted) Feedlot losses quickly pushed down the price of feeder cattle, dragging down incomes for district ranchers. The big meat supplies put gradual downward pressure on hog prices until September, when prices plunged to the lowest levels since the early 1980s triggering big losses for pork producers. District crop producers fared better than livestock producers in 1994, a switch from recent years Crop prices remained high during the first half of the year, boosting incomes for those farmers who waited to sell the small crop harvested in 1993. The strong first-half prices also offered farmers an opportunity to boost incomes further by selling in advance their newly plated 1994 crops. Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that relatively few farmers sold the new crops before prices plunged at midyear. The missed opportunity was made worse when the high first-half prices led to a decline of more than $5 billion in government subsidies designed to compensate farmers for low prices. …