Grain prices, yea me again....

If that happens, corn prices will tank fast and our rural economy doesn't need that.

Just read in the MSN news report that 61 percent of our nation is in drought. Corn production is now considered 30 percent down. Compared to 22 percent last week.

All you people that have animals better buy as much feed as you can right now and store it somewhere. I got a feeling were all gonna be hurtin by the time this is all over with.

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r.h. in oklahoma

Raised a country boy, and will die a country boy.

We just went and bought a bunch of goat grain and poultry feed today, as much as we could comfortably unload in this heat, and were surprised that prices haven't increased yet at our local D&B. We're hoping to get some more in storage before they do increase.

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Saw something today that I would never have expected to see. Large field which was annexed to the city a few years ago. Curb all around and street entries laid out. Just needs for heavy equipment to come in start working on a big development. Been fallow timothy hay in the meantime and tall enough to almost hide a car if one took a wrong turn. It was mowed and baled into huge bales normally only used around here for straw. Looked worthless before it was mowed and not any more impressive as bales. Stopped to talk to one guy to get some answers. They've got equipment that can shred those bales and the results will be mixed with molasses, grain, and corn silage. When one has 1,000-1,500 milk cows to feed, selling off a quarter of them for Big Macs isn't always the best option. Dry them up, cut back on feed, and have them when normal conditions return next year. Sounds like a winner to me.

Martin

This is farming, when any decision is made regarding one segment of agriculture, it affects the other aspects.

Years ago when the decision was made to force 10% ethanol into gasoline, it really helped the corn farmer, but those high corn prices have also hurt the American Dairy Farmer. It really drove up the price of grain, and naturally we are dependent on that. It hurt the dairy industry pretty hard and we never really have recovered from that...

But I say that as a dairy farmer. I completely understand why the corn belt communities think ethanol in gasoline is a great idea, it certainly helps them.

Overall I think ethanol in gasoline is silly, and can even be backed up by Fidel Castro. I typically do not quote him, but even he said, "American's are stupid for using good farmland that they can grow food on just so they can drive around." Considering all the plants that could be used to produce ethanol, corn is not the best choice. For instance cattails produce nearly 1/3 more ethanol fuel per acre then corn...and do not consume valuable tillable acreage that could be used to produce more food. As is, using corn to provide ethanol uses 29% more fossil fuel then it replaces...and it is the reason why all our foods are costing 200% more now then before the ethanol requirement was pushed through. With high corn prices, farmers are planting more corn then the other crops, driving up the demand and price for them.

"There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel," says David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell. "These strategies are not sustainable. The United State desperately needs a liquid fuel replacement for oil in the near future," says Pimentel, "but producing ethanol or biodiesel from plant biomass is going down the wrong road, because you use more energy to produce these fuels than you get out from the combustion of these products."

"The government spends more than $3 billion a year to subsidize ethanol production when it does not provide a net energy balance or gain, is not a renewable energy source or an economical fuel. Further, its production and use contribute to air, water and soil pollution and global warming," Pimentel says. He points out that the vast majority of the subsidies do not go to farmers but to large ethanol-producing corporations."

"Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation's energy security, its agriculture, economy or the environment," says Pimentel. "Ethanol production requires large fossil energy input, and therefore, it is contributing to oil and natural gas imports and U.S. deficits."

When you factor in all the hidden costs of ethanol in gasoline, it does more harm to more Americans financially, then it helps. With 3% of the US Farm Bill going to ethanol plants alone, it kind of makes you wonder when the silliness will end? I am glad this is at least in the news. The stock markets are taking this serious, this is the second day in a row ethanol stocks are down.

I will just quietly disagree with you 100% Plowpoint, you are wrong in what you say. The issues have been covered many time over, and I'm sure folks don't want the drag-out fight on it again.

Ethanol rovides a net energy gain of about 3% these days - small to be sure, but a _positive_ energy gain. Been proven many times. Ethanol provides a safe boost to gasoline that reduces many bad pollutants in gasoline exhaust, which is the main benifit of 10% ethanol. The high octane of ethanol allows refiners to use lower grades of gasoline to blend into fuel, saving money on the refraction of gasoline. Engines tuned to run on 25-85% ethanol would be much more efficient and save much more energy; but we just aren't there yet, folks aren't willing to change their cars that much.

Dairy farmers were laughing at the corn farmers 20 years ago, saying why grow corn when you can buy it cheaper than anyone can raise it. Dairy/livestock farmers were the benifactors of the grain subsidies, as corn was selling for less than it cost to grow.

Corn finally is worth something - not much compsred to inflation ajusted _Anything else_, but something - because the rest of the world has stronger ecconimies than the USA has. Our dollar is only worth 70-80% of what it used to be worth, so our corn looks cheap to those other countries, esp the Pasific Rim. They are happy to buy our corn because it is is _cheao_ to them.

World ecconomic. Not ethanol.

You are competing with China, not your neighbor's fuel tank.

As you well know, fuel, fertilizer, seed, and anything made of steel or rubber has skyrocked in costs the last 5 years, making grains and all food cost much more to produce than it ever has. This has nothing to do with ethanol, it has to do with world eccomnomies, and the poor value of the USA dollar.

Ethanol subsidies ended January 1st, so unlike gasoline, diesel, or milk, there are no govt subsidies for the corn ethanol any more, none of you money is spent on rthanol subsidies at this time.

Pimentel has been shown to be a flake several times over, he uses 'studies' that are very, very flawed to come up with his agenda against ethanol.

Ethanol is the most easily accepted alternative motor fuel because it will work in our fleet of cars. There are alternatives that would be more efficient; but they require a whole new fleet of vehicles, a whole new set of fueling stations. No one is willing to spend the money, our ecconomy doesn't have the strength to do so. Corn = starch, which = sugar, which = ethanol. We have no other cropping system in the USA big enough, funded well enough, with the storage capacity to produce that much sugar. Our climate and the storage needs and the established harvesting capacity in the USA just overwhelmingly favor corn as the way to get cheapest ethanol for fuel.

I know many people here are pre-disposed to hate on ethanol and do so with no regaurd for any sort of facts.

You admit you have a bit of a bias, you prefered the below production cost you could buy corn for and laugh all the way to the bank. But for those who wish to think, and study the real facts, corn ethanol provides us with some energy gain, returns 30% of the corn as high-protien livestock feed, gives us cleaner air to breathe, and does what tax-payers have wanted for years - reduced the tax subsidies on grain farmers. We were told to suck it up and find our own markets, don't bother the taxpayer with our excess grain. So we did. We gave you cheaper fuel, and now you still complain.....

For gosh sakes, you are quoting Fidel Castro??? That alone should tell people how wrong you are!

--->Paul

I heard that a yield test was completed today for corn in my area, and the results were that the field would produce 10 bushels per acre.

While fields around here aren't being mowed or plowed yet, or being zeroed out, I am told that it could start happening very soon.

Outlook not good here if there isn't 2 to 3 inches of rain in the next 7 days. Without it, total loss projected.

Area's corn crop could be total loss/article_5f89edc-cc89-11e1-bb84-0019bb2963f4.html

Martin

It looked dry this morning, but I got 4 tenths over night Thusday to Friday.

Should heat up tomorrow & be in the 90's, near 100 for a few days. So I got a little breather on moisture, but it will burn off fast with the heat again. Thankful for the little bit tho.

Shuffled the cattle to a different pasture, see if this little shot of water will grow the one they have been over-grazing.

--->Paul

We'll have to agree to disagree on the Ethanol Equation.

I'm not really sure how you can try and make an argument stating that, "We were told to suck it up and find our own markets, don't bother the taxpayer with our excess grain. So we did..." and in trying to defend a Us Government MANDATE.

Ethanol has been around for years, and so have the Ethanol plants, which did produce a product from the excess corn, but no one chose to buy it. So I simply say, IF corn is the Savior of the United States fossil fuel fixation, IF Pimental is a freak, IF Fidel Castro is wrong and we should not use land to produce food and instead use it to produce something we burn up, IF we are truly competing with China, then let's pull the government mandate to force it in gasoline and see how well it stands up on its own free market!

This is no different than if the US Government tried to create a market for the milk we produce. We could even say we are trying to create a healthier population by forcing every American household to have a fresh gallon of milk in their refrigerator all the time. I mean it is healthy, it would create a market for excess milk. It would stimulate the dairy industry. It would probably create more creameries and add jobs. It would help the local rural economies...the point is any mandated practice can be justified with good reasoning, its just that we are a free market society, and when the Government MANDATES something, it has unforeseen problems.

It was like that when the US Government tried to force us all to go to Compact Florescent Bulbs. They had a whole list of reasons why they outlawed the incandescent bulb, but in practice the CFL's had some flaws. All the killowatt savings were lost because being slow to light up fully, people kept their lights on longer! In the end the US Government dropped the mandate and it clearly shows that unforeseen issues arise when mandates are put in place.

There is a host of unforeseen problems with the ethanol mandate and you and I both know, if you pull the mandate, the price of corn will topple. It has too because with it you are manipulating the law of supply and demand. I say if it is so great, see if people buy it if given a choice, we are a free society after all.

I do want to say however that "I would never laugh all the way to the bank" should the corn prices topple. I am not that way personally. I am on the county agricultural board and fight hard for all segments of the industry; dairy farmers, sheep farmers, blueberry, and Veggie Farmers. I know corn farmers took a beating in the early 80"s and I know the number of suicides in the mid-west corn states without googling it...936 souls who took death over watching their farms go up for sale...I am sensitive to that. I cannot imagine losing this farm...a 10th generational farm that has been in existence since 1746. And like the corn producers in the 1980's, we had suicides in the dairy industry as well. So I am truly sensitive to the issues the corn farmers faced in the 1980's, I am just saying, when one segment of the ag industry is manipulated, it affects another.

But unlike the corn industry, what we get for milk is dictated by the government. There is no free market system for us at all. No matter how high fuel or corn prices get...in other words what our biggest costs are...we are told what we are going to get for our milk. No wonder Maine lost 25% of its dairy farms in a single decade.

It actually rained here today.

As I scurried to get some things picked up so they wouldn't get wet, I thought "this might be the rain that will help a few corn fields, and allow the beans to produce."

I then raced to get my 2 watering cans and a 5 gallon bucket to set outside to catch rain water. When you've suffered a drought, you start remembering how valuable each gallon is. I had hoped to catch several gallons of water to use on our garden later this week.

The rain stopped about as abruptly as it started...and when I checked the buckets, we didn't even get enough rain to cover the bottoms of the buckets.

I live in a somewhat dairy area yet, my neighbor put up one of the last 'small' dairy farms of 100-130 milking a decade ago. They work hard. I've helped a few times.

Also a bit familiar with the dairy price stuctures. You folk have as much involvement with the govt in your affairs as corn farmers do. Pasture probably looks greener on the other side to both of us, I'm sure we both have bout the same 'real world' gripes on it. Seems to me the govt does a whole lot of school lunch subsidies and mandates with the cheese purchases and all, kinda sorta like corn mandates, but hey, it always looks greener on the other side, bet both of us wish the govt would mostly go away on all that and just let us be. If they would also quit messing with our sales, as well.

The ethanol mandate has, by default, already lowered ethanol demand by 14%, that's how much less gasoline we are using in this ecconomy.

We have been exporting ethanol to Brazil for most of a year now - seems our corn ethanol - with no subsidy now - is still a better deal to them right now than their own cane ethanol.

To turn it around, just heard we are importing some corn from them to the feeders in the southeast - the rail system is so poor with grain prices up, it's cheaper to float the corn up from South America from time to time.

CRP - folks wanting to set land aside for wildlife uses - is surely a bigger deal for your cheap corn needs than ethanol production.

I'm told on some ag forums I visit that grain corn isn't that big a part of livestock feed in the USA any more, we've been into alternatives for a while now. Where I live corn basis is typically keeping actual corn prices low and we so over produce corn in this area that the hogs and cattle and turkeys can't even eat up half of it, so I'm not sure what is being fed in other regions of the country - corn historically has been cheap around here.

I think the govt doing anything suddenly would be a real bad deal for all of us in 24 months or so - if they mess up the natural (????) market system of rationing corn, we coyld be very messed up in 2 years and end up being a net importer of corn ourselves. We don't need kneejerk reactions to this.

Which is why I started this thread - everyone keep your eyes open to a wild ride on grain prices, possibly down as fast as it comes up, and be prepared and we don't need to do anything drastic at this time, we don't want to cut off exports and tick off other countries, we don't want to do a drastic ethanol cutback (it'll naturally cut back on it's own, as it has done and continues to do).

Was just reading, we are about the only country that pays less than 10% of our income on food, and that includes eating out which is done a lot in this counrty, so we have been living in a very good spot here, we might need to adjust a little bit for a while anyhow. China, which has a lot of susistance farming even still, spends 35% of their income on food..... Even Canada is at 11%.

--->Paul

At least around here farmers are harvesting early for silage! Since it is a poor crop they are saving face and feeding the hogs with the corn.

...they are even using the manure aerators to water corn fields.

Now the farmers that are ONLY grain producers, their corn is in the field still....

It's the smaller farmers I'm worried about, NOT the "LLC's" with their big cAt combines!!!

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I see a very dark cloud on America's horizon,
and that cloud is coming from Rome.
- Abraham Lincoln

I am in central il and I would make the drive down to see ''silage fed'' hogs

Yea, I think something got lost in the translation there on the silage fed hogs.

The govt lowered crop conditions again today. Prices went up something like 50 cents a bu on all areas.

Way back before anything was planted this winter/spring, the govt was estimating we would harvest 166 bu an acre corn on average across the country.

Some folks on some of the sites I visit are pretty good at doing those calculations themselves, and they are thinking we are now, today, at a 124 bu per acre yield.

I also heard that the ground is now dry on such a large area of the midwest, that it will be hard to stir up a rainy spell for the bulk of the summer. Nothing to evaporate to creat the rain clouds, and we are in a longer term weather pattern that doesn't suck moisture up from the Gulf very easily.

--->Paul

corn silage for pigs

Question Display (Illini PorkNet) — University of Illinois Extension

__________________

I see a very dark cloud on America's horizon,
and that cloud is coming from Rome.
- Abraham Lincoln