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Farm Balance Sheet

Overview

Estimates of farm business balance sheets are presented for the United States and individual States. The balance sheet includes component accounts for assets, debt, and equity, where equity equals assets minus debt, 1960 to the present. The disaggregated balance sheets enable users to assess the status and trends of wealth within the farm sector.

Assets are valued at market prices on December 31 of each year or as close to December 31 as possible. Debt is classified as either real estate or nonreal estate. Nominal and real capital gains on farm assets and debt are estimated. An extensive set of financial ratios is presented reflecting the solvency, productivity, liquidity, and efficiency of the farm sector in the aggregate. These financial measures provide useful indicators of farm sector financial performance.

Both operators' and landlords' shares of the assets and debt for the farming operation are included in the balance sheet. If a loan is secured by farm real estate, then it is classified as real estate farm debt, regardless of how the loan is used. The dwelling occupied by operators is not included in the farm business balance sheet.

Feature

Farm balance sheets for the most recent time periods are available (see table).

There are hundreds of tables but the major categories are individual farm sector balance sheets for the United States and States by decade, and financial ratio tables for solvency and profitability ratios and liquidity and efficiency ratios.

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For more information, contact: Robert Williams and Ken Erickson

Web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov

Updated date: November 29, 2011