Chart 1.
The title is "Farmers in the West Have Taken on More Debt in Recent Years." This bar graph shows the percentage of farmers who have taken out loans up to the practical limit for the years 1982 through 1999. It compares number of farmers in the United States as a whole with those in the West. In 1982, around 31 percent of farmers in the United States had taken out the maximum amount of loans, compared with around 42 percent of those in the West. The percentages for both went down a little in 1983, rose back to 1982 levels in 1984, then rose a little more in 1985 and 1986. The percentages fell to about 20 percent for both groups in 1988 and 1989, then rose back up to around 1982 levels, where they held steady until 1996. In 1996, the percentage of farmers with maximum loans in the United States remained at a little over 30 percent, but for farmers in the West, the percentage spiked up to almost 60 percent. That figure decreased to around 40 percent in 1997, those rose back up to 55 percent in 1998 and 48 percent in 1999.