The margins in farm country remain tight, and that has many farmers and ranchers concerned for 2025. Dr. Jeff Dorfman is an economist at NC State University, and says the economy is something of a mixed bag right now/

“Well, I think the economy in 2025 is going to be pretty good in terms of growth and how it’s improving. I don’t think there’s going to be a recession unless something crazy happens in the world, but certainly people are still feeling the effects of all the inflation and having to work extra hard to sort of keep up with that.”

Dorfman recommends that farmers pay close attention to the timing of the markets this year.

“So, for example, cotton now is 68 cents. There were times in 2024 where was over 75 cents. You’d be a lot better off, I mean, selling for 75 versus 68 probably the difference between making some money and losing some money. So I think the prices will be variable enough that farmers will have a chance to lock in at least some small profits here, but if they miss those windows, waiting till the price is even better, then we could end up selling at a bad price and losing money.”

Making lots of something is the American way, but Dorfman cautions to aim for value, not volume.

“The idea for any business owner is not to do as much business as possible, but to make as much money as possible. So if you can do some value-added processing, if you can cut out some middlemen, whatever you can do to improve the profitability of your operation is more important than trying just to get more acres or more yield. It’s not about how much you produce, it’s how much you make.”

With President-elect Trump’s promise of tariffs on many imported items, many folks are worried about the unintended consequences. Dorfman says while tariffs aren’t good, they aren’t the doomsday that some are worried about.

“I think the tariffs are bad, and they’re going to hurt agriculture some. They’re not going to be as bad for the entire economy as some people think. It’s sort of equivalent to like, a 1% hit if he does everything he says. But it could be particularly bad for some parts of agriculture there, in particular, if you grow something that we sell a lot of to China, and China chooses that commodity to retaliate. Then there’s nobody else that can replace China’s demand, they’re just too big.”