U.S. Midwest Farm Economy Hit Hard by Record Floods: Fed Banks

U.S. farm incomes in the Midwest and Mid-Southern states declined yet again in the second quarter of 2019, as record floods devastated a wide swath of the Farm Belt, according to banker surveys released on Thursday by the Federal Reserve Banks of St. Louis and Kansas City.

Nearly two-thirds of the bankers surveyed by the St. Louis Fed said a majority of their farm customers were either significantly or modestly impacted by the flooding and other adverse weather earlier this year.

But in parts of the Midwest, federal trade-related aid to farmers and corn prices rising this spring due to the wet planting conditions slowed the pace of that income drop, according to bankers surveyed by the Kansas City Fed.

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