Community Profile

The St. Louis Fed’s Agricultural Finance Monitor quarterly reports on regional agricultural financial conditions, as well as bankers’ expectations of farmland values, farm loan repayment rates, required collateral, farm loan interest rates and credit supply and demand.

The slight uptick in bank earnings experienced by District banks and their U.S. peers in the third quarter did not carry over into the final quarter of 2011.

Despite historic drought conditions, crop producers and lenders in Eighth District states appear likely to exit the year in satisfactory financial condition, but the situation is somewhat different for livestock producers.

While some measures of Eighth District housing-market activity recently showed signs of life, it’s not clear yet if it is cause for cautious optimism in the economic outlook.