How does the Great Recession of 2007-2008 compare to the COVID Recession of 2020? Larry Deboer, ag economist at Purdue University, explains. 

Though some predictions are harder than others, we are confident about this one: Property tax bills for farmland owners will go down next year.

We can predict this because we know the base rate for farmland for tax bills in 2021. The base rate is the starting point for the assessment of farmland. The state’s Department of Local Government Finance applied its formula to six years of data on corn and soybean prices, land rents, interest rates and costs, and came up with $1,280 per acre. That’s 18 percent less than this year’s base rate of $1,560. This value is adjusted for soil productivity and other factors to come up with the assessed value for each acre.

Forecasts? Don’t talk about forecasts. You kidding me? I just want to know what’s happening now!

With apologies to Jim Mora, that’s our problem. What’s happening in our economy, right now?

Believe it or not, these three things get tied together as Purdue Extension specialist, Larry Deboer, explains. Spoiler alert, the pandemic is part of the story. 

We got trouble, my friends, "with a capital T." The Indiana state budget closeout for fiscal 2020 was held in mid-July, so we have a good idea of how bad things are.

Now that we know the numbers, we can take a look ahead. Let’s do some “supposing” about what could happen during this fiscal year 2021, and during the next biennium.