Kentucky agricultural cash receipts in 2015 are projected to be 8% off from last year’s record high, falling to $6 billion—still the third highest on record. On the national front, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects cash receipts are down 10% from 2014. The outlook for 2016 remains depressed.

“One of the major contributing factors to a slumping U.S./Kentucky ag economy is the decline in ag exports responding to the strengthening U.S. dollar, weak overseas economies, and mounting crop and livestock supplies,” said Will Snell, PhD, extension professor in the University of Kentucky (UK) Department of Agricultural Economics.

Snell and other UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment faculty, including Kenny Burdine, PhD, Todd Davis, and Tim Woods, PhD, all from UK’s Department of Agricultural Economics, Jeff Stringer, PhD, from the Department of Forestry, and Kentucky Farm Business Management Program coordinator Jerry Pierce, shared their agricultural economic outlook for 2016 and an overview of 2015 during the Kentucky Farm Bureau 96th annual meeting Dec. 3 in Louisville.

Though Kentucky crop and livestock receipts are expected to decline 16% and 3%, respectively, in 2015, other factors managed to counterbalance the weakened markets slightly