Call me cynical but I'm guessing this is largely due to government subsidies.

So naturally food prices will drop later this year to reflect the abundance, right?

Yeah, biatches! Who's flyover country now, huh? Imma make it RAAAAAIIIIIIIINNNN up in this motherfarker!!!

But seriously, if you know how to make it rain, that would be great, cause this planting glut is going to coincide with one of the driest winters in history. Unless March is a monsoon, don't expect record harvests or anything.

Makes me think of King Corn.

chaddsfarkprefect: Call me cynical but I'm guessing this is largely due to government subsidies.

Not really. Government subsidies are only a factor for farmers who rent the land because they allow land owners (like Ted Turner, banks, Japanese investors, etc.) to charge higher land rents and still allow the guy actually farming to make a profit. A farmer who owns his own land can make a good profit without the subsidies. The advantage to not taking subsidies is that the government doesn't get to tell you how to farm. Most farmers in our area who own the land they farm don't participate in government programs, farmers who rent the land they farm do. Not sure if that's national or just local.

A lot of farmers, the guys who actually farm not just own farm land, think government subsidies should be eliminated. A lot of landowners who don't farm their land but rent it out think they should remain in place. Go figure.

Yea they pay the farmers NOT to plant and produce food. We send the food that they do grow out of the country to other countries so we have a fake shortage. They run the price up to make a profit on what they sell to us and we can't afford it due to their being hardly any industry in this country

Now, did they really plant a lot of acre, or was more in a Major Major Major Major kinda way?

Does that mean the "Congress-created dustbowl" morons in the Central Valley will quit boo-hooing about no longer being allowed to waste and pollute, and will actually plant something this year?

I've been planting my seed a lot lately too, the most since 2004!

You know... if they could create farming drones, and hook them up to Farmville and let players grow real crops... we could feed several worlds...

I have mixed feelings about this. Food is still getting more expensive, people around the world are still starving, and the farms are all owned by Monsanto.

But "Yay!" recovery.

Old enough to know better: So naturally food prices will drop later this year to reflect the abundance, right?

How much are (current) food prices determined by supply vs. the cost of transportation?

/anyone?
/bueller?

I blame ethanol and bio-diesel.

Mr. Right: chaddsfarkprefect: Call me cynical but I'm guessing this is largely due to government subsidies.

Not really. Government subsidies are only a factor for farmers who rent the land because they allow land owners (like Ted Turner, banks, Japanese investors, etc.) to charge higher land rents and still allow the guy actually farming to make a profit. A farmer who owns his own land can make a good profit without the subsidies. The advantage to not taking subsidies is that the government doesn't get to tell you how to farm. Most farmers in our area who own the land they farm don't participate in government programs, farmers who rent the land they farm do. Not sure if that's national or just local.

A lot of farmers, the guys who actually farm not just own farm land, think government subsidies should be eliminated. A lot of landowners who don't farm their land but rent it out think they should remain in place. Go figure.

A lot of those subsidies got started because the onset of the Great Depression coincided with bumper crops in much of the country. We had a huge (record) supply, and low demand. So prices crashed, and profits margins were thin or nil. A lot of farmers doubled-down, and gambled on a good next year. And got it! Record production again. Unfortunately, demand was even lower than the year before, even at rock-bottom prices. As a consequence, much of the cereal crop rotted in silos, unsold. Because of prohibition, this grain crop could not be converted into alcohol, whose prolonged shelf-life enables a producer to make a sale at a later date and recoup some of their investment. As a consequence, the nation went through a famine while a record crop production rotted and small farmers all over the country (who couldn't weather the prolonged lack of sales) collapsed. This lead to actual production shortages in the next years, as many farmers simply gave up or went broke and left farming, or in some areas the ground wore out from high-intensity, last-ditch farming methods.

Farming is an industry with high overhead, high volumes, and low profit margins. The subsidies allowed a farmer to fallow his land, or to refrain some seed purchases for a year while still having something to show for his land, and often gave a fixed pre-season purchaser for the with some measure of guaranteed price. In an era of industrial farming, the subsidies don't do much for the big farming operations, whose geographic diversity and massive inertia and capitalization let them survive poor seasons, but they do provide a measure of insurance for the smaller operators, who often cannot survive a prolonged period of low profitability.

The Irresponsible Captain: I have mixed feelings about this. Food is still getting more expensive, people around the world are still starving, and the farms are all owned by Monsanto.

But "Yay!" recovery.

People will always starve. We have had more than enough food to feed everyone world-wide for quite some time. Getting to the food to their country is not a problem. Getting it to the starving person often is.

FTFA:
"They will sow corn, soybeans and wheat on 226.9 million acres, the most since 1984, a Bloomberg survey of 36 farmers, bankers and analysts showed."

So 36 farmers are going to plant 226,900,000 acres? 6.3 million acres per farm is pretty large. In fact, that 9850 square miles. That's larger than Maryland. Each!

// I know, I know.

a Bloomberg survey of 36 farmers, bankers and analysts

santadog: DRTFA: It's corn isn't it. Big on corn.. and I'm guessing soy.

WE ARE NOT CATTLE.
Hell, Cattle aren't suppose to eat that much corn.

Indeed, we're not. That's why we eat the corn kernels and give the cattle the sileage and grains which we cannot digest.

And come fall, they will be biatching about how the prices of these commodities plummeted because of excess production. And, just so people know, these aren't dad-and-son farms. These are the huge corporate farms owned by ADM, Cargill, Monsanto, etc. and, yes, they are heavily subsidized by the USDA.

sulco: Makes me think of King Corn.



Is very excited about more corn.

Anyone remember the dust bowl? Yeah, there was a reason for that, and it wernt sad stories on fark.

That's weird. Everything I've been hearing out here in farm country lately is predicting $3 corn by next fall (that's about half of current price). I hope it happens. There are too many guys around here that have been buying up land for prices so inflated that they can only be profitable with sky-high commodity prices and wet years, both of which we've had in abundance around here for the last 5 years or so. Some of them seem to have forgotten that farming is cyclical, and we're due for a kick in the pants. 2-3 years of conditions like we had in the 80's, and a lot of these guys will be going bankrupt. That would help make some of that land available to locals again and bring land prices down from the insane levels they're at right now. High corn prices are bad for everyone except the huge farmers. It hurts the consumer, it's absolute murder on the environment, it hurts the cattle, hog and chicken farmers, and puts the squeeze on smaller family farms as land prices skyrocket, driving up property taxes, feed costs and rent.

laurens: Anyone remember the dust bowl? Yeah, there was a reason for that, and it wernt sad stories on fark.

As it turned out, the Great American Desert actually was a desert, despite the rainfall noted in the 1890s. By the 1920s, it had reverted to its normal sub-agricultural levels of precipitation, the buffalo grass and topsoil was torn away, and the constant westerlies did the rest.

On the upside, destroying the buffalo grass drove the North American Locust extinct, so we didn't have to worry about them compounding things.

Fortunately for us, we no longer farm that section of the Plains (and for the most part, don't even inhabit it anymore).

laurens: Anyone remember the dust bowl? Yeah, there was a reason for that, and it wernt sad stories on fark.

Reading history and learning from it is for nerds and losers.

Damn sodbusters!

This text is now purple: Farming is an industry with high overhead, high volumes, and low profit margins. The subsidies allowed a farmer to fallow his land, or to refrain some seed purchases for a year while still having something to show for his land, and often gave a fixed pre-season purchaser for the with some measure of guaranteed price. In an era of industrial farming, the subsidies don't do much for the big farming operations, whose geographic diversity and massive inertia and capitalization let them survive poor seasons, but they do provide a measure of insurance for the smaller operators, who often cannot survive a prolonged period of low profitability.

In reality, big farmers use subsidies and benefit from them more than small. The subsidies are frequently inadequate to keep a small farmer afloat. Small farmers have a much better shot at making it by finding a niche market and satisfying that. I'll mock foodies all day long but, in reality, they're making me a comfortable living by buying my niche farm products.

mod3072: laurens: Anyone remember the dust bowl? Yeah, there was a reason for that, and it wernt sad stories on fark.

Reading history and learning from it is for nerds and losers.

So let''s make sure we know the history. The dust bowl was caused by an extreme and prolonged drought in the Great Plains and because of nearly non-existent soil and water management programs. We can do nothing about the former, but we have excellent soil and water management plans nationwide. The dust bowl could happen again, but it is highly unlikely.

hailin: mod3072: $3 corn

Really?! You guys are getting screwed. I'm glad I live in a state that produces tons of corn. Every summer there are roadside stands that sell 10 ears for $5 (used to be $3). Flathead Cherries are about $2 per plastic tub.

1. He means bushel - the unit of measure that corn is priced in on the open market. Currently it's about $6.30.
2. 10 ears for $5 is not a good price.

meat0918: And most of it was GMO (new window)

Good.

Rapmaster2000: hailin: mod3072: $3 corn

Really?! You guys are getting screwed. I'm glad I live in a state that produces tons of corn. Every summer there are roadside stands that sell 10 ears for $5 (used to be $3). Flathead Cherries are about $2 per plastic tub.

1. He means bushel - the unit of measure that corn is priced in on the open market. Currently it's about $6.30.
2. 10 ears for $5 is not a good price.

During the summer it's incredibly cheap here. Probably around the $0.20/ear or something similar. Good sweet corn, too - not feed corn. We get it constantly when we're grilling. Now it's 3 ears for $5 because it's off-season.

ronaprhys: meat0918: And most of it was GMO (new window)

Good.

Rapmaster2000: hailin: mod3072: $3 corn

Really?! You guys are getting screwed. I'm glad I live in a state that produces tons of corn. Every summer there are roadside stands that sell 10 ears for $5 (used to be $3). Flathead Cherries are about $2 per plastic tub.

1. He means bushel - the unit of measure that corn is priced in on the open market. Currently it's about $6.30.
2. 10 ears for $5 is not a good price.

During the summer it's incredibly cheap here. Probably around the $0.20/ear or something similar. Good sweet corn, too - not feed corn. We get it constantly when we're grilling. Now it's 3 ears for $5 because it's off-season.

Just out of the supermarket in Atlanta we get $.20 an ear in the Florida corn season (March/April) and then $.20 an ear in the summer season.

I buy a lot of corn in season. Growing up in Indiana we ate corn almost every night in the summer because we got it for free. My old man was the town barber and his customers just gave it to him.

I never eat corn out of season though because it sucks. Where does out of season corn come from? Brazil?

McManus_brothers: hailin: mod3072: $3 corn

Really?! You guys are getting screwed. I'm glad I live in a state that produces tons of corn. Every summer there are roadside stands that sell 10 ears for $5 (used to be $3). Flathead Cherries are about $2 per plastic tub.

.50 cents/ear? shiat, here in Florida during corn season I can get local corn at .20 cents/ear...and that's at the supermarket I work at. The fruit/vegetable market has it even cheaper.

The kind of corn they are talking about here is not the kind you buy in the supermarket. This is high-yield bulk corn that is used for animal feeds, ethanol and corn-based products. You wouldn't want to eat this fresh. It's just starchy, with little flavor. What we buy from the supermarket or farmer's market is sweet corn, which is meant to be eaten fresh. Far less of this is produced.

Are they going to bring back King Korn savings books again?

SurfGirl69: I blame ethanol and bio-diesel.

Biodiesel is not to blame. Ethanol is not biodiesel, and everybody in the biodiesel industry is anti corn-ethanol. We don't use it at all. It takes more diesel fuel to farm an acre of corn than the ethanol than you get out of it. Algea is the future of biodiesel. It doubles in size every day, you can grow it in salt water, waste water, grey water, in the desert, in the ocean, wherever. Doesn't take food or water away from people like ethanol does.

Ethanol is nothing more than a BS ploy for big oil and big corn to make a ton of money, pretending to be environmentally concious.

attention span of a retarded fruit fly: Yea they pay the farmers NOT to plant and produce food. We send the food that they do grow out of the country to other countries so we have a fake shortage. They run the price up to make a profit on what they sell to us and we can't afford it due to their being hardly any industry in this country

lol

9/10

/would have been 10/10 except this troll has been done to death

JackieRabbit: mod3072: laurens: Anyone remember the dust bowl? Yeah, there was a reason for that, and it wernt sad stories on fark.

Reading history and learning from it is for nerds and losers.

So let''s make sure we know the history. The dust bowl was caused by an extreme and prolonged drought in the Great Plains and because of nearly non-existent soil and water management programs. We can do nothing about the former, but we have excellent soil and water management plans nationwide. The dust bowl could happen again, but it is highly unlikely.

I would say that it is more likely now than it was 30 years ago. There is an almost unprecedented amount of land in the midwest that is being broken to plant corn. Not only are they breaking native prairie to plant corn, they plant corn on corn on corn, year after year. There's very little ground cover left on a corn field harvested with modern combines. Roundup Ready corn has made it so that there aren't even any weeds between the rows to help hold topsoil. A few years of severe drought with no more grass to hold that dirt down, and it could happen again. After the dust bowl, much of the land that had been broken was returned to grass. Now it's all being plowed back up in the "goldrush" to capitalize on high corn prices. There are certainly some parallels between what we are doing now and what we were doing then. Yes, we understand things a little better now and have more programs in place, but just like with banking regulations put into place after the depression, we gradually forget and start undoing those protections in a quest for greater profit. I see that happening in this area a lot lately. These big guys don't even plant grass waterways anymore. They just plow them up, then we get a big rain and the road ditches fill with silt as all their topsoil erodes away. They don't care. They'll use up the land and move on. That's without even mentioning what they are doing to the water table is some areas of the country where there isn't enough rainfall to grow corn so they just pump it out of the ground so they can grow more corn, draining natural aquifers and entire rivers in the process. Corn will turn the great plains into a great desert if we aren't careful.

Plain to see by the comments here, that most of you don't know jack about farming, corn, food distribution, and how the world works etc.

I thought most of the folk on here were college students. Must be a lot of deadbeat OWSers kicked out of their parents basements, hitching a ride on someone's WiFi.