Posted on 07/18/2008 5:43:35 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
As Price of Grain Rises, Catfish Farms Dry Up
By DAVID STREITFELD
LELAND, Miss. — Catfish farmers across the South, unable to cope with the soaring cost of corn and soybean feed, are draining their ponds.
“It’s a dead business,” said John Dillard, who pioneered the commercial farming of catfish in the late 1960s. Last year Dillard & Company raised 11 million fish. Next year it will raise none. People can eat imported fish, Mr. Dillard said, just as they use imported oil.
As for his 55 employees? “Those jobs are gone.”
Corn and soybeans have nearly tripled in price in the last two years, for many reasons: harvest shortfalls, increasing demand by the Asian middle class, government mandates for corn to produce ethanol and, most recently, the flooding in the Midwest.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I don't buy this argument about grains or oil. Speculators NEVER take physical delivery. Eventually every contract is delivered from an actual producer to an actual consumer. Speculators add liquidity between the two. For every contract bought by a speculator, one has to be sold. Actual supply and actual demand ultimately drive prices. If speculators drive prices of contracts up, some actual consumers MUST ultimately buy those contracts from them and the speculator will take a HUGE loss if there is not enough actual demand.
If you and I were electrical engineer climate scientist economic gurus like Al Gore. We’d understand how viable his plan is. If we were democraps we’d just believe him because the 2000 election was stolen from him.
Ethanol and it’s unintended consequences...
Buy stock in Cal-Maine, symbol CALM.
This is the country’s largest egg producer. They are making a fortune...
“This is what happens when the gubmint mandates burning food crops as fuel - food shortages and high prices.”
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Brazil imports ZERO petroleum. They have freed themselves of dependence on terrorist oil, in less than 2 decades.
100% independence. Mostly with sugar cane. All Brazilian cars run on Alcohol or gas — and demand for gas is so low, Brazil actually sells gas back into international markets as an unwanted output from their refineries.
Brazil manages somehow, to feed Brazilians.
This whole “food or fuel” line is propaganda, nothing more.
We need to stop our dependence on oil.
Alcohol offers an EXCELLENT alternative. We can grow sources of input for alcohol production virtually everywhere in the country. Who will get rich?
AMERICAN FARMERS!!
Corn. Sugar cane. Even a lot of plants which are considered weeds, can be used to generate alcohol right here in America, and every single gallon produced, directly displaces a WILDLY OVERPRICED gallon of gas, which is paid for with dollars which go directly to terrorists and communists.
Heard a pretty interesting show last night on “Coast to Coast”. The guest’s assertion was, that the original Ford Model A was built to run on alcohol, and did so very efficiently. Alcohol has a higher octane than gas, and runs almost infinitely cleaner - with less wear on engines.
Ford was strongly in favor of running autos on alcohol.
Rockefeller, managed with several millions of dollars of lobbying (real money back then), fought back with ... prohibition.
Making the production of alcohol in America. ILLEGAL.
Thereby creating a gasoline monolopoly which continues to this day.
The caller’s assertion rings very true.
We need to move off gasoline as a nation.
Now.
Correct,
In fact, the cost of fertilizer has quadrupled. (Made from oil.)
The “Organic” mantra will pretty much dry up as people see the difference in price and better quality from the “dirty-evil man-made” food products.
Here is a little fact for you....
If every acre of land was used for alcohol fuel production only, in this country, it would only provide us with less than 30% of our needs.
And how would there even be electric cars built without oil? All the plastics, rubber, lubrication, insulation, carpet and electronics could not exist without it.
But since you are an avid supporter of “Coast to Coast” that explains your boisterous ignorance.
Oil man, huh? :)
Yeah, that’s about what I pay for them, a little less.
Was recently in Italy. We bought eggs at the grocery and cooked breakfasts in our villa most mornings. The eggs there tasted great! I don’t know what they’re doing differently, but it was noticeable. The U.S. poultry industry should take a look at that.
“Here is a little fact for you....
If every acre of land was used for alcohol fuel production only, in this country, it would only provide us with less than 30% of our needs.”
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Why does this remind me of Nancy Pelosi explaining if we start drilling now, we won’t see any more oil for at least 50 years?
;)
You bet, we’re all in an evil plot to enslave the World!
Now, go back to your lilly pad and croak with the rest of the frogs.
Perhaps.
But there are others of us, in an equally evil plot (to oil addicts anyway) to wean Americans from buying oil from terrorists and communists. Sometimes know as ...
(sorry can’t tell you that)
Our scheme? Make some farmers rich.
Raise the value of the dollar.
Turn around our balance of trade.
Spark innovation.
Stock market boom.
Heheheh.
(evil, plot-like chuckle)
It also has 30% less B.T.U's than an equivalent amount of gasoline. George Noory wouldn't know or care about that.
” Eventually every contract is delivered from an actual producer to an actual consumer.”
Probably very few actual producers have sold their 2008 crop forfuture delivery at the high prices we have seen. The possibility of not having a crop to sell (hail, flood, drought, etc.) is too high to risk.
It is also likely that very few actual producers have sold any of their grain at the high levels. I would guess everyone sold on the way up and very little actual grain moved.
You know. George catches a log of flack, but he’s a Navy veteran, a libertarian, pro-RKBA and a lot of his guests are pretty darn smart.
Some, are raving lunatics.
Listeners, have to keep in mind at all times the phrase “caveat emptor”.
The guest speaking of alcohol, wasn’t one of the alien implant, or other screwballs.
He clearly knows his stuff. I’m leaning toward a flex-fuel vehicle as a short-term approach, until we’ve got even better choices available. Just as long as I can spend less money on terrorists, I’m all for it.
The guest’s server crashed because of the show — but here’s his book link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0979043778/ctoc
I don't think you have done your homework. The actual loss in feed value is relatively small. Practically every ethanol plant either has a new adjoining large feed lot or there is a string of very large trucks on the road between the plant and existing feed lots.
Now, how much of that was ethanol, and how much was increased domestic production?
What is happening is a redistribution of the locations of feed lots. Feed lots a long ways from an ethanol plant are hurting. Given that the pain is largely due to government mandates for ethanol production, this isn't just a matter of market Darwinism.
Kind of like robbing banks, 'cause that's where the money is......
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