Marketplace: Farmers Have Been Relying on the High Value of Their Land to Get Them Through Years of Low Commodity Prices

Land accounts for 80 percent of farm assets, according to the Agriculture Department. As a result, farmers are using their land as collateral against loans when facing low commodity prices, but the amount of production that farmers need to service their debt is rising, noted a Marketplace radio story. John Newton, AFBF’s director of market intelligence, commented on how farmers may be affected if poor commodity prices continue. “You can easily start putting together a scenario where things start falling apart pretty quickly,” Newton told Marketplace.