The big news this week in the farmer oriented coffee shops I frequent, besides the dumbass Indiana state budget, is the latest USDA crop report and the fact that many of us grain farmers here in the Midwest think it has an odor about it.....as in something is rotten within the damn thing.
The USDA surprised everyone within agriculture this past Monday, both the grain traders/gamblers in the CBOT and farmers, by finding an extra million acres of corn no one knew existed!!!!
Everyone I know and converse with thinks it is 100% bovine scalentology. With the spring we've had across the Midwest and with the Illinois crops in the shape they are, where in the Hell did the USDA find an extra million acres of corn? (No matter what you think of Illinois politics, the honesty or lack thereof of their governors and the Mistake By The Lake, Illinois and Iowa are the two biggest factors in corn production in the US and when their farmers have trouble on a wide basis, the country can expect a decrease in corn production. It's just the way it is.)
The USDA in this latest crop report also found more acres of soybeans than were earlier predicted but that makes sense if rain kept a good number of corn farmers out of the field till late in the season and we all know it did. Many of them converted those corn acres into soybean acres, but its the boys who had chemicals down that are not compatible with soybeans that are really in trouble. I was talking to my district manager for the seed corn company I principally rely upon and he said his company has customers in south-central Illinois that have filed for "Prevented Planting" for corn under their federal crop insurance and this was the first time in history for one farm that had been in operation for over 40 years. The farmer grapevine is picking up all kinds of horror stories about big operators over in central Illinois not being able to get their corn in and we still haven't seen the repercussions yet.
But for the Department of Agriculture to state there are a million more acres of corn out there than previously expected defies logic and common sense under these conditions. (In case you're new to the intricacies of agriculture and crop prices these USDA crop reports heavily, and I DO MEAN heavily, influence the direction of future trades in the corn and soybean 'pits' at the CBOT and thereby all of our overall economic health.)
Another item of interest for those who like to watch economic trends, is it seems the price of anhydrous ammonia has dropped.......as in right through the floor!
Rumor has it that during this past week farmers in Iowa were starting to pre-pay for ammonia for this fall at $400/ton. May I remind my loyal readers that I '...squealed like a pig...' last fall when I had to pay for ammonia for the present corn crop at the rate of $975/ton, but even that was better than this Spring's $1,175/ton. I've already checked with my local dealer and he told me he had just recently heard the same rumor, but he wasn't jumping yet because he was still unsure where the 'bottom' was and he got slapped last year pretty hard by the big boys. He lost a bunch of money even at the $975 price; so once bit, twice shy.
However, it seems the price of potash (Potassium) and phosphate for the Fall are holding at the present levels; which are record highs by the way.
Another rumor that's making the rounds is all the seed technology companies (everyone, not just Monsanto, but Dow, Sygenta and everyone else who develops seed technology) are going to require new signed technology agreements before next Spring if any farmer wants to plant any kind of patented seed. (And a fact of life in agriculture today is ALL the seed today is patented.) I don't agree with this, but I appreciate the fact a good source fed me this information as I will probably spend the winter searching out alternatives to these Fortune 500 companies attempts to exert even more control over individuals like myself.
Believe me I'm not alone in terms of my attitude toward these bullies so we will see if the Al Gore's internet helps foster a non-technology agreement black market in the seed business for the year 2010?
All The Best,
Frank W. James
Friday, July 3, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
All part of the cheap food policy. Wouldn't want the Big Mac price to go up with the price of corn.
It's going to be interesting when that "extra" million acres doesn't produce... Feel for y'all trying to fight off big brother. Good luck!
Frank,
My neighbor here in north central Oklahoma lost 100 acres of his 122 acres of winter wheat - two fields came up months late, had really weak stands, too thin to justify trying to harvest.
Other neighbors are putting in their soybeans, in the last two weeks. Depending on rainfall, occasionally we see some corn down here, I haven't seen much this year.
I saw a *lot* less feeder calves on early winter wheat last fall. Several sections that had pastured for a few months (take the calves off before the sprouts split and form a stem, hit the wheat with nitrogen, and you still get a good crop wheat crop) didn't at all last year.
I wonder if the lower price for ammonia might be because some farmers couldn't afford it at the peak prices, and passed on fertilizing, or if there are more farmers that couldn't get crops in the ground, hence need less fertilizer.
And I sure hope that extra million in corn isn't a pledge from Colombia, Iran, or Brazil.
Any more I think the only alternative to patented seed will be heirloom and open pollinated seed. And the farmer will be responsible for maintaining records and storage for open pollinated seed - the big corporations have got the Federal Government to implement "Guilty unless you prove you are innocent" on buying and planting seeds - that is, you pay some patent holder or else.
I can just see major farm operations converting to open pollinated seed and organic methods - and achieving dramatically lower costs for half the yield. Farmers would be getting by, the seed companies would take it hard, and a lot of people would start going hungrier. Patented seed seems to be a protection racket that needs broken up.
That report made my head turn as well. I don't use grain in my sheep operation so I don't follow those markets but I do follow the weather.
Glenn Kelley
This USDA report, like the scandal around the recent EPA report, is another example of the growing unreliability of the federal government and federal agencies. Some federal agencies do provide a useful service. The Weather Service is one. The USDA agricultural reports are another. When those reports can no longer provide useful, reliable and needed information, the thought rises, "Why do we need them?"
With the politicization of all facets of the federal agencies, their usefulness ceases. Their need to exist also ceases.
When these agencies are no more than outlets of federal propaganda, the users will go elsewhere for their information. And, the usefulness of the federal government diminishes.
Frank ; I suspect i know where your acerage is . Last year there was a " program " that incited corn planting , to the extent that dryland corn covered SE Colorado ( jeffro will get the joke if no one else does ) using the acreage5k from that program as a base its entirely possible that they underestimated the amount of acreage tilled to corn this year . My stepdad leased about 5k acres to a guy who planted corn on that program . He never harvested a single acre but none the less it was " corn acreage " .
"...organic methods - and achieving dramatically lower costs for half the yield. Farmers would be getting by,..." If that is really possible people would already be doing it. Also, in central MO, you would be halving a 30-40bu crop. Don't know how you could make any money with that, even if it's bin kept seed.
"Patented seed seems to be a protection racket that needs broken up." Why? There are plenty of varieties out there that are not patented. To plant patented seed one VOLUNTARILY signs a contract. What most people forget is that there is a LARGE (in our area) yield improvement along with a lower chemistry cost when you CHOOSE to used patented seeds.
Hmm, I seem to have wandered a bit OT.
As to the USDA report I'm curious if some moron didn't include replants as new corn acres. We had to replant ~300 acres of corn and in our area that was rather low.
Post a Comment