FARMER confidence in the rural economy is remaining buoyant, but starting to lose some of its bounce in the boggy weather conditions prevailing across much of eastern Australia.
In Western Australian farmers are feeling the impact of near-drought conditions, while the high value of the Australian dollar has also undermined some farmer sentiment about the outlook for the sector.
However a promising spring across the eastern agricultural regions has still maintained confidence at high levels according to the latest quarterly Rabobank rural confidence survey.
Although moderating slightly compared to the previous quarter, the Rabobank survey - completed last month - showed the highest confidence levels recorded in a fourth quarter since the study began.
Although persistent wet weather was now becoming "too much of a good thing" for producers on the eastern seaboard, for the fourth successive survey, there were more farmers expecting economic conditions to improve than those expecting conditions to decline.
The number of farmers expecting conditions to worsen was however up, at 19 per cent, from 13pc last survey.
But the number of optimists was also on the rise to 42pc expected conditions to improve in the coming year compared to 37pc.
Rabobank’s general manager for rural Australia, Peter Knoblanche, said rainfall had been favourable in many key agricultural regions in spring with farmers anticipating a bumper season, but recent weeks with continuing persistent rain had caused harvest delays, crop losses and quality and yield setbacks.
