Early indications are that farm credit could tighten this year, but area agricultural lenders say it’s just as likely that while they won’t improve much, they won’t get much worse, either.
    A recent bulletin from University of Nebraska Extension says forecasters from the 10th Federal Reserve District, which includes Nebraska, say “credit conditions have eroded and will likely continue to decline.”
    Unsurprisingly, economic dislocation from the COVID-19 pandemic bears much of the blame. At the same time, those problems are aggravated by weak markets, which led to dropping farm income and liquidity in the second quarter of the year, and persistent drought in this part of the state. And Nebraska has the lowest farm income expectations in the district, which also covers Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado, northern New Mexico and Wyoming.

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