DOWN with biofuels - Page 2

skeet · #16 06-11-2007, 10:44 AM

I didn't think you were unedumacated on farming or nothing. The only problem we have now days is this. Lead times on crops are so long. The grain markets are volatile. If the soybean crop looks as though it's gonna be poor...then the money people buy a bunch of extra grain from South America. Then when the crops come off here the price is down again. Oh and don't forget farmers see a raise in prices and they plant more of that crop...then the price is down because the acreage planted is so much larger. And the biggest thing is the American farmer for the most part isn't a family farmer any longer. They are corporations that are interested in making the most money with the resource so they don't do the crop rotation thing. They don't leave ground fallow. The family business farmers are the same way. And right now go out and buy a farm and pay for it farming. Won't happen. Probably won't even get a loan to buy the land. Just checked a few minutes ago. The price of out of the field Wheat is 4 dollars and December corn is 3.91. This is the time of year I contracted my corn if the price was right. Then if ya don't have storage you have to pay storage rent of so many cents a month. That farming business isn't a family farmer John in the back 40 thing any more. By the way...The government is going to let some of the acreage in the CRP program be taken out without penalty, as long as the ground is used for grain production that will go to Biofuel production. Yeah, sure, how will they know where it goes..unless they contract with one of the biofuel companies. And some of them also sell grain commodities. Wish it would work...but big business is involved amn. That means more money out of you(and my) pockets! I'm just full of Doom and Gloom, huh?
Well not really..gonna buy the farm next to me if I can get it for the right price. We're close on that...and there is another 85 acre place right down the road I might buy....

fabsroman · #17 06-11-2007, 01:47 PM

GOB,

What you are forgetting is greed and economics. If a farmer can make 4 times as much money growing corn instead of barley with the same amount of work, why would he want to plant barley unless the price of barley is close to that of corn. As the price of corn increases due to high demand for ethanol, there will be less barley produced. With less barley being produced and the same demand for barley, or other crops for that matter, the price of barley and other crops will also increase. It is a simple supply and demand curve. As supply decreases the price will increase and the demand will decrease (i.e., people will not buy as much beer because it costs more).

GoodOlBoy · #18 06-11-2007, 03:41 PM

Oh fabs believe you me I ain't forgetting about greed or economics. But sooner or later that field is going to give out, and no amount of chemical additive is going to get a decent crop out of it. Those who don't believe it look at the cost of nitrogen alone this year. By the way organic fertilizers such as rabbit, and chicken manure do wonders for your crops. half a dozen rabbits will produce more manure than you can use on twenty acres of land (mostly because it will burn crops if you put it too thick on the rows. Best to just run it between the rows and let the rain soak it in.

Skeet, I knew ya didn't think I was unedumacated (And by the way for those at home I spell it thataway on porpoise (Yep dolphins are involved). I hope you do get the land brother. I really do. If more hunters and farmers had more land and worked together, and less of it was in the hands of corporate farms I think we would be better off.

Back to greed. The problem is that small farms COULD make the money too IF the goverment would spend a little of that fallow ground money on puttin buyers BACK in hub towns along transport lines. Remember those days? When you could take a crop to town and sell it? My grandfather and his family had a dozen different crops they would plant in different fields for that very purpose. You plant cucumbers here for pickles (Don't let em get too big they won't se and you have to eat em yerself), Tomatoes here for canned tomato buyers, corn there for corn buyers, beets, radishes, peppers, you name it. You are and canned the leftovers at home. I have spent MANY a day in a pea patch fightin fire ants, wasps, hornets, and snakes for a toesack full of peas, just to have to go back and do it again tomorrow.

You know how much work that gets to be, and I miss every danged minute of it. Heck if I had to choose between sitting on my arse watching TV and pickin peas I would be in the pea patch ANY day. Then again at night you HAD to sit on the pea patch and get the deer, and on the corn rows to get the coons, and on the watermelon patch to get both of em. I think of all that good deer meat we were forced to eat because we had to shoot em off a patch of peas and it makes me want to cry. BECAUSE I ain't got a patch planted this year durn it!

GoodOlBoy

skeet · #19 06-11-2007, 04:23 PM

I watched deer many times stomp on a watermelon and then eat the heart out of it..and go to another one with the coons followin along behind. Picked many tomatoes cause the Eastern Shore of Md where I grew up was the garden for Baltimore and Washington. Lots of canneries around back then too. Hated pickin cucumbers for pickles and was allergic mildly to tomatoes..but that weren't no nevermind as they said. Just had it to do. Those same canneries that used to be everywhere have almost all gone out of business or just closed. Farmers had too much work into picking all the crops. Now ya have to hire Mexicans or whatever and the gummit makes you provide housing that is better than a lot of farmers have. Too much regulation and it wasn't just caused by the gummit.. Liberal do gooders got involved. I remember all the infighting very well. If'n it hadn't been for the ACLU and other groups it may have stayed profitable to stay in truck crops. One farmer friend in Md quit growing because of gummit regulations 3 yrs ago..another one last year. The first grew sweet corn and squash and the other grew aparagus and sweet corn as well as potatoes.. The first put half his ground in the CReP program and rents the rest out to a grain farmer. The second is growing small grain and about 40 acres of edible soybeans for the Japs...but ya still use a combine on them. Sorry GOB..but ya can't go back and it just ain't gonna happen.

fabsroman · #20 06-14-2007, 09:43 PM

I just heard on the news that the price of groceries have gone up 65% because corn is being used for ethanol. They said that it is because the price of corn has gone up significantly over the past year. Only time will tell what is going to happen.

skeet · #21 06-15-2007, 12:52 AM

Groceries went up 65%?? Because of the price of corn? How ridiculous can they get? The price of any grown commodity such as corn or wheat or soybeans has such a small effect on the price of groceries it is unbelievable. The price of groceries is up because of the price of fuel and the wages that must be paid to get those groceries to market. Here it is again. The farmer is getting rich off of the consumer! Yeah, right. The farmer gets the least profit from the stuff he grows! The rest is all because of the middlemen. from grain brokers to the companies that make the product from the grain to the delivery (trucking etc) companies to the store selling the finished profit. How much do you all think the farmer gets from the cost of a loaf of bread? Half?? The farmer could only wish! More like 3-4 cents per loaf of bread goes to the farmer. The rest is all the other people who live off of the sale of the bread.

Oh well

fabsroman · #22 06-15-2007, 01:17 AM

Who knows how they came up with that number. They definitely didn't try to explain it. They just assume that we will take it as gospel. They did mention that the price of beef went up because the price of feed went up.

Also, who knows how the middlemen, etc. determine what they are going to sell something for. If a farmer is initially selling a bushel of corn for $1.00 and now he is selling it for $1.65 (i.e., a 65% increase), the middlemen and retailer might just tack on another percentage to that price to sell the item. Now, because the farmer raised his price by 65%, it will be passed along to the final product. On the other hand, if the middlemen, etc. use a fixed profit amount per item, then this is a lot of crap. However, who knows how they figured this out. All I know is that the 30 year mortgage rate average is at 6.75%, inflation is still on the rise, the FED is talking about possibly raising interest rates again to stop inflation, and investors are trembling.

BILLY D. · #23 06-15-2007, 03:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by skeet
Groceries went up 65%?? Because of the price of corn? How ridiculous can they get? The price of any grown commodity such as corn or wheat or soybeans has such a small effect on the price of groceries it is unbelievable. The price of groceries is up because of the price of fuel and the wages that must be paid to get those groceries to market. Here it is again. The farmer is getting rich off of the consumer! Yeah, right. The farmer gets the least profit from the stuff he grows! The rest is all because of the middlemen. from grain brokers to the companies that make the product from the grain to the delivery (trucking etc) companies to the store selling the finished profit. How much do you all think the farmer gets from the cost of a loaf of bread? Half?? The farmer could only wish! More like 3-4 cents per loaf of bread goes to the farmer. The rest is all the other people who live off of the sale of the bread. Oh well

skeet

My Father in law once explained this in very simple terms, he was neither an economist or a grain dealer. He said if you look at it in the terms of a box of wheat chex a bushel of wheat should be worth something in the $70>$80 range and that was back in the seventies. I looked at the milk futures the other day and whoa nellie, it will be 4>$5 a gallon before long.

One my vices in life is heavy cream in my coffee, that stuff is almost $7 a quart. Think I'll give it up, when hell freezes over.

You are right about the middleman, theres too many fingers in the soup. People here in the states are spoiled rotten when it comes to prices we pay for food. If the prices doubled or even trippled we still make out like bandits compared to the rest of the world. And who do we have to thank for that. THE AMERICAN FARMER.

We used to have the highest food standards in the world, but now that we have to feed 20 million illegals look at our food sources. Had to laugh the other day, a woman in town here bought a package of Banquet chicken and prepared it and was sitting there eating when she started investigating the piece of chicken she was chawing on and it turned out it was a head. She headed to the bathroom and blew lunch. Bought a few Oldsmobiles and Buicks.

I won't even eat out anymore unless it is an absolute necessity. Besides that I'm a smoker so I'm not allowed in those places.

Best wishes, Bill