Small cow-calf and feedlot operators who bank through their community bank are better positioned than the large integrators, who tend to use commercial banks, he points out.

Helming says that with trillions of dollars in debt being written off or down, business as usual won't cut it. As perspective, he offers this: 1 million seconds was 12 days ago, 1 billion seconds ago was May 1975, and 1 trillion seconds ago equates to 29,700 B.C.

“The world has changed and it's going to be tougher to borrow money, to get credit and it will take more equity than before,” he says.

While Helming agrees that current conditions will be tougher on crop farmers than livestock producers, he points out that “a deflationary environment tends to have a more negative effect on the original producer of any product — in other words, the low man on the totem pole.”

In addition, he foresees — within 3-5 years — a 25-40% decline in average farm and ranchland values. “Everything is involved in this one and the markets will take no prisoners,” he says.

“I'm bullish on America in the long term, though I'm very disappointed and upset about what our government is doing right now and probably will continue to do. The federal government ‘bailout’ programs fundamentally do not work and always have numerous negative unintended consequences. Eventually we'll go back to an inflationary environment, and energy, grain and livestock prices will unquestionably go higher again, but that's down the road — years away,” Helming says.

Conversely, Michael Swanson, chief agriculture economist for Wells Fargo, expects a “very severe U.S. and global recession” for 3-5 quarters. “Typically, recessions last from 9 to 16 months. We haven't had a severe recession in this country since the 1980s. We've gone for a quarter-century with very mild recessions and strong economic growth. People aren't prepared for it.”

In this current crisis, he says he's preaching discipline to producers. “Somebody is going to fail and if you don't want to be the one that fails, you have to be the one who has more discipline than anyone else.”

Overall, Swanson says he's “very bullish” about both the U.S. economy and the world economy. “And that makes me different from some people right now who look at the cyclical and structural issues and have become very bearish on their long-term outlook."