Farmometer Results Provide Optimistic Outlook for 2024

Jan 05, 2024

Missouri Farm Bureau wrapped up another great annual meeting in December, and this year’s theme focused on our organization being “Guided by Tradition.” One of those annual traditions is the Farmometer survey.

For nearly 30 years, annual meeting goers have had the opportunity to fill out the survey. By asking farm related questions each year, the survey has established trends that make it a true barometer of how our members feel about the state of agriculture.

The survey asks respondents how they would describe their operation, how they generally feel about the condition of their operation and agriculture in general. They’re given a list of ten challenges that face agriculture production and are asked to rank them. Finally (and to me, the most important question of all), they are asked if they would recommend that their children follow in their footsteps.

Those four questions provide a snapshot into the daily lives of farmers and ranchers throughout our agriculturally diverse state.

After back-to-back years of melancholy results, this year took a turn. Things are looking up.

Just shy of 40 percent of respondents stated that they were “more optimistic than a year ago” regarding their feelings towards the future of agriculture in our state, with 41 percent noting “no change” from 2022. That left less than 20 percent of Farm Bureau members feeling “more pessimistic” about the outlook. Not a bad start.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.