That global warming article really chapped me the other day. I found this article this morning, which seems to confirm that we will be "lucky" once again this summer. This makes me semi-nervous, though, because corn does need hot weather at some points in its growth to mature fully. So... we'll see.
This article freaks me out. You're probably wondering why. Well, maybe I'm just pessimistic, but I'm fairly certain we're going to pay for these high prices at some point. When corn goes higher, soybeans go higher. As long as we raise a crop, we should make some good money. I should be enjoying this. The first corn I sold, which would've been 7(?) years ago, I sold for $1.92/bu. If I could sell corn for $8/bu, that's a huge chunk. Over a 1,000 bushels, the difference would be about $6,000. For the same product. The market is cyclical, and from a few things I've read, it's going to go back down again sometime in the next couple of years. I could be wrong. I don't know. What I do know is that corn prices will go down, and when they go down, rent, fertilizer, seed, fuel, etc. probably won't. So we'll get $4/bu for corn while paying $250/acre rent, $300 for a bag of seed, and $4/gallon of red diesel. My money is going into a coffee can this fall. I'm preparing for a farm depression.
Here are some flood updates, if you're interested. The first one is a radio interview with a farmer that lost his farm. It's not a long interview, but listen to all that he and his wife lost, not to mention the 3 hired men he had:
This is a link to a newscast about the flood:
http://www.agweb.com/multimedia/3-million-acres-of-farmland-could-be-swamped/
Ben, I never realized how much I didn't know about farming until you started blogging about it all. My respect for farmers goes up every time I read more about what you have to think about, calculate, and work against/with. Thanks for putting the hard work in to farm and also to enlighten those of us unfamiliar with the farming world. You guys are really unsung heroes.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking of you a lot with the rain, not knowing how it's treating you. Also thinking about you when I pick up my camera - it's itching to see you. But we're going to Minnesota for memorial day and the whole week after that. I'll call you some time soon.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Michelle. My hope with the blog was to help people learn more about the inner workings of running a farm, so I'm glad it's doing that. I don't know if we're heroes. We're just too dumb to get a job in town. :)
ReplyDeleteTeagan - Anytime you want to come over, you kids are welcome. We have a guest bedroom, a grill, and 2 dogs that have never met someone they dislike.