Farming’s 2017 questions revolve around weather, foreign trade

Farmers operate a business and they have many of the same questions that most businesses have about the year 2017. They do have a few more things to consider than many other kinds of businesses.

Two of the big questions they think about for next year are the export market and the weather.

Foreign trade and the ability to sell farm products to other countries are extremely important to agriculture. Dairy and grains are two big agricultural export commodities with from 15 to 50 percent sold on the foreign market. This helps farm prices and without that export market, they would be a lot lower than they were in 2016.

So foreign trade is a big factor in helping farmers during a difficult time.