Financial Characteristics of North Dakota Farms 2002-2011

Andrew L. Swenson

No 134452, Agribusiness & Applied Economics Report from North Dakota State University, Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics

Abstract: The performance of over 500 North Dakota farms, 2002-2011, is summarized using 16 financial measures. Farms are categorized by geographic region, farm type, farm size, gross cash sales, farm tenure, net farm income, debt-to-asset, and age of farmer to analyze relationships between financial performance and farm characteristics. Five-year averages, 2006-2010, are also presented. In 2011, median and average acreage per farm was 1,968 and 2,619, respectively. Median and average cash farm revenue was $569,268 and $757,134, respectively. Over 70% of farms were crop farms and 54 percent of farms had gross sales exceeding $500,000. Median age of farm operators was 47. Median net farm income in 2011 was $144,414, second highest in the past 10 years, down from $174,010 in 2010. Financial measures for 2011, 2010, 2008 and 2007 were much superior to those in other years for the 2002-2011 period. The Red River Valley and crop farms typically had stronger profitability, solvency, and repayment capacity from 2002 to 2011 than other regions and farm types, respectively. Exceptions were 2007 and 2009 when the north central region had the best regional performance and 2005 when the south central region and livestock farms had better performance. The 2011 median net farm income was $185,822 for crop farms and $61,244 for livestock farms. Farms with sales less than $500,000 were over three times as likely to have debt-to-asset higher than 70 percent as farms with sales greater than $500,000. Farms that own some crop land, but less than 40 percent of the land they operate were more likely to be crop farms, farm more acreage, have larger sales, and be more profitable. As expected, solvency and percent of crop land owned increased with farmer age. Median net farm income as a percent of gross revenue was the highest of the decade in 2010, 33.1 percent, and the lowest in 2009, 13.4 percent. It was 27.5 percent in 2010, 24 percent in 2008 and 30.6 percent in 2007 after ranging from 22.4 to 14 percent between 2002 and 2006

Keywords: Farm Management; Financial Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36
Date: 2012-09
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:nddaae:134452

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.134452

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