Farming Industry Outlook - Best in 2 1/2 Decades

According to Bloomberg Business Report, this year is going to be the best year American farmers have had in two and a half decades. The next big winners are the fertilizer companies and farm-equipment manufacturers.

Sales of farm equipment are correlated to growers' cash receipts, which should rise 24 percent to $118.4 billion for major crops in the 2010-2011 season, Ann Duignan, an analyst at JPMorgan in New York, said in an Oct. 8 report.

Farmers are taking advantage of low interest rates to buy land and machinery.

In September, sales of four-wheel-drive tractors in the U.S. were 21 percent higher than at the same time last year, and sales of combine harvesters jumped 12 percent, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers said Oct. 13.

Brandon Hunnicutt, who farms about 3,600 acres of mostly corn and soybeans in Giltner, Nebraska, said he may spend more on fertilizer and improve equipment.

"Some of those purchases maybe you were hoping you could make we should be able to make now because you have $5 corn," said Hunnicutt, who's also the president of the Nebraska Corn Growers Association. "Five-dollar corn makes it a whole lot easier to justify some of that."http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/10/18/bloomberg1376-LAG0670UQVI901-3A01I3BCV2AGHGHB0OSSM1C8UC.DTL&ao=2#ixzz12pIrlZDN