American Bankers Association Ag and Rural Bankers Committee Vice Chair Caleb Hopkins is seeing the cost of interest becoming a become a bigger part of the balance sheet. “Producers have not experienced operating rates as high as they are today. You look at a million dollar operation, that interest expense is going to more than double.” Comparisons have been made to the farm crisis days of the 1980s, but Hopkins said there are more tools today to mitigate risk. “Crop insurance programs are much more robust and revenue guarantees have climbed to give producers opportunities to manage that risk.”
