Here’s something you won’t find in the fake news: Most farmers across the United States are growing optimistic about the economy. Please, go do a quick Google search and come back. At the time I started writing this, around 2 p.m. on Wednesday, only the Purdue University College of Agriculture and Ag Daily are covering it. It’s possible it could blow up later, but I doubt it. The fake news is too busy looking for reasons to cover every single foreign individual who is questioned by immigration at the airport, like it’s a new phenomenon, or cherry-picking the farmers who aren’t and turning them into headlines.
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Related: Economists to Media: Negative Trump Reporting is Hurting Agriculture
But back to my point. The latest Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer, which came out on Tuesday, shows that farmer sentiment — currently and for the future — improved during the month of April by eight points, and a whopping 70% of famers say that Donald Trump’s tariffs will “strengthen the agricultural economy in the long-term.” Another 8% are simply unsure, and the remaining 22% have negative feelings. If I’m reading the chart correctly, this time last year, the barometer was nearly as low as it was at the beginning of the pandemic. Hmmm, I wonder what changed?
1/📈 Farmer sentiment climbed in April. The #Purdue University/@CMEGroup #AgBarometer rose to 148 — an 8-point jump from March. Both current & future outlooks improved. What’s driving this change? Let’s break it down. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/uluzaItqmD
— Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture (@PUCommercialAg) May 7, 2025
Here are a couple of other highlights:
1. The Farm Capital Investment Index rose to its highest reading since May 2021. “There was a marked shift in the investment index following the November 2024 election. From May through October 2024, the investment index averaged a reading of 36, while from November 2024 through April 2025, the average index value was 54 — 50% higher than during the preceding six months. This month, one out of four respondents said it was a good time to make large investments, nearly double the percentage of respondents who said it was a good time to invest when surveyed from May through October of last year.”
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2. The Farm Financial Performance Index “marked the fourth month in a row that the index was above 100, indicating that producers expect financial performance this year to equal or slightly exceed the year-ago level.”
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Farmers do have some concerns about short-term impacts. A little over half of the farmers surveyed said that they may face a few issues in 2025, largely related to obtaining supplies, like fertilizer, electronics, chemicals, and machinery parts. But even though they may face a few initial challenges that might require some adjustments, they’re excited about what Trump’s tariff plan will do in the future.
Could we be entering the Golden Age of farming? It’s entirely possible. We just have one more barrier. Back in January, I wrote about agricultural economists speaking out about how the media’s negative Trump reporting is hurting the agriculture industry. You would think that since farming in the United States impacts every single one of us, the least the fake news could do is cover the topic fairly and celebrate positive stories like this, but I’m not holding my breath.
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