Farmers face tough times

Alan Mauldin

October 15, 2008 11:26 pm

— MOULTRIE — The financial crisis that has rocked U.S. banks and stocks around the globe also is hitting home with farmers and agriculture equipment dealers.
At the second day of the Sunbelt Agricultural Exposition optimism was not a word that came to farmers’ lips.
“Things are tough,” Live Oak, Fla., poultry farmer Chris Hand said as he checked out tractors with 10-year-old nephew Zack Hand. “The worst thing about right now is you’re scared of doing anything.”
Hand, who took over his father’s 28-year-old poultry operation seven years ago and has since doubled its size, said he is squeezed by the debt incurred for that expansion as prices for his supplies and equipment have risen dramatically.
At this time he is looking at staying in for another year or two while deciding on the future of the operation and is not in the market for new equipment or eyeing further expansion.
“I’m very, extremely worried,” he said. “What’s got me worried right now is whether to get rid of the farm or keep it. We’re going to stay in for at least the next couple of years and see what happens.”
In the meantime he has started an Internet business that he can fall back on.
Hand said neighbors he has talked with are cutting back as well. And his wife, who works in a bank, is seeing long-time farm customers having a hard time getting credit to purchase needed supplies.
“She’s seen people that have been getting loans for years and they can’t get them,” he said. “It’s going to put some people out of business. Some of them shut down completely. They’ve gone to other jobs.”
At the McCormick Tractors display site at Expo, Tammie Snodgrass, marketing manager, said that sales of compact tractors favored by hobby farmers have declined slightly. And farmers coming by to kick the tires of tractors seem to be down from previous years at the show.
“I’ve talked to other people,” she said. “They said the attendance seems to be down. This is our fourth show this fall and they said it seems to be down at all of them.”
Snodgrass, who was in the auto business until General Motors closed the doors of its Doraville, Ga., plant, said she is optimistic the economy will turn around.
“I think growing up in the ’70s when the housing market was down and the economy, it took 10 years to turn that around,” she said. “I’m just kind of wait and see. It’s the entire economy, it’s not just the agriculture economy. If the overall economy picks up the agriculture economy will pick up. We have faith in America, that it will come back around.”
While at the Expo on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said that the $700 billion “rescue package” passed recently by Congress should make credit available to farmers who will need loans to buy seeds and supplies.
“It’s designed to free up the credit market,” he said.
The liquidity provided by the government purchasing banks’ “toxic” loans and guaranteeing loans so that banks can again lend to other banks will provide liquidity in the market, Chambliss said.
“We need the liquidity issue and credit to open,” he said. “We’re going to do everything we can for that money to be available for farmers.”
U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Albany, who also attended the Tuesday luncheon, said that he reluctantly voted for the plan because he felt it was important to the country’s financial health.
“I hate we were in a position where we had to do something,” he said. “We could not afford to do nothing. That was bitter medicine, but that was medicine we had to take.”
The intent of the rescue plan was to generate a credit influx that will help consumers purchasing homes and vehicles, businesses such as car dealerships that depend on those customers having credit, and farmers, Bishop said.
“You’ve got individuals who can’t buy cars because they can’t get credit. You’ve got small businesses,” said Bishop, who represented Colquitt County until 2006 and whose district still includes Brooks, Mitchell and Thomas counties and a portion of Worth County. “You’ve got students and parents with student loans, and that money is drying up.”
Legislation passed by Congress includes oversight and safeguards, including a bipartisan panel that will review implementation, Bishop said.
“We want to do everything we can to get the economy on track,” he said.
Tim Bescher, an organic farmer whose small White County, Ga., operation includes cut flowers, vegetables and herbs, said he is concerned about the economy although he does not depend on credit.
“Watch out, it’s coming,” he said. “It’s exciting times we’re living in. I don’t do credit; we work it out as we go. My mamma didn’t raise no fools.”

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.