Resilience, Producer Sentiment, and Related Farm Characteristics

At the 2024 Purdue Top Farmer Conference, a survey exploring farm resilience, producer sentiment, and growth expectations was conducted, yielding insights into the perspectives of America’s leading farmers. This study compares survey responses from 52 agricultural producers from the Top Farmer Conference, against national surveys using identical survey instruments. Analysis of the survey data is performed using t-tests and correlation coefficients to test associations between resilience, growth expectations, and sentiment among attendees compared to national respondents. Top Farmer Conference participants displayed a more optimistic outlook on the agricultural economy and higher expectations for farm growth. Attendees display similar resilience levels to the national averages, despite lower diversification, suggesting these producers choose to use specialization as an intentional business strategy. Despite lacking direct measures of risk preference and managerial abilities due to the survey's condensed nature, predictive classification models estimate these attributes, suggesting superior managerial skills among conference attendees, but not significantly higher levels of risk aversion. This research highlights the interaction between resilience, producer sentiment, and farm growth expectations for leading agricultural producers. Estimates of managerial acumen and risk preference provide further depth to comparisons of Purdue Top Farmer Conference attendees to the average U.S. producer.