Financial Characteristics Of North Dakota Farms 2004-2005

The performance of over 500 North Dakota farms, 2004-2005, is summarized using 16 financial measures. Farms are categorized by geographic region, farm type, farm size, gross cash sales, farm tenure, net farm income, debt-to-asset, and age of farmer to analyze relationships between financial performance and farm characteristics. Five-year averages, 2000-2004, and farm financial trends for the 1996-2005 period are also presented. Year-to-year changes in median net farm income within regions and farm types averaged 50 percent from 1996 to 2005. Median net farm income fell slightly in 2005 to $42,286, but 19 percent of farms had net farm income greater than $100,000. Financial performance was lowest in 1997 and 1998 when over one-half of farms could not make scheduled term debt payments. In 1999, 2000, 2003 and 2004 the rate of return on equity exceeded the rate of return on assets, which indicates that debt capital was employed profitably. The first rise in eight years of interest expense as a percent of gross revenue occurred in 2005, to 6.0. The Red River Valley and crop farms had stronger profitability, solvency and repayment capacity from 1995 to 2004 than other regions and farm types, respectively, but were out performed by the south central region and livestock farms in 2005. Farms with sales less than $100,000 were three times as likely to have debt-to-asset higher than 70 percent than were farms with sales greater than $500,000. Farms that own some crop land, but less than 40 percent and are more likely to be crop farms, farm more acreage, have larger sales, and be more profitable. As expected, solvency and percent of crop land owned increases with farmer age.