Posted on 02/15/2008 1:31:23 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
ALBION, Neb. -- The U.S. economy may be teetering on the brink of recession. But there's a bountiful harvest down on the farm.
Grain prices are surging to historic levels. Spring wheat, a variety often used in bread, hit a record $18.53 per bushel yesterday. Corn is trading above $5 and soybeans are bringing in more than $13, all 25% or more above their year-ago prices.
Net farm income is expected to hit $92.3 billion in 2008 -- a 51% increase over the 10-year average of $61.1 billion. Across much of the Great Plains, unemployment rates are well below national figures and housing markets remain robust. Robert Moskow, a food industry analyst at Credit Suisse, has proclaimed this the "golden age" of agriculture.
The new era owes largely to a surge in crop demand from biofuels producers and the growing demand for grains in places like China and India. With inventories strained, "We're not going to go back to $2.10 per bushel corn," says Mike Helmar, director of industry services at Moody's Economy.com.
While the boom is reversing decades of decline in U.S. rural areas at an otherwise vulnerable time, it's also pushing global food costs higher. International wheat prices in January were up by 83% from a year ago, according to a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Scarce and costly grains -- especially staples like rice, wheat and corn -- have caused riots in poor nations such as Senegal and Mexico, says the group.
Here in Albion, a central Nebraska farm town of fewer than 2,000, such problems seem worlds away.
People are building new, outsized homes or renovating existing ones. A new ethanol plant has created 55 jobs and a full-time dentist is on the way.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Farm Aid 2008 has been cancelled.
I love corn in any form and I am on a gluten-free (wheat free) diet so I guess my grocery bill won’t skyrocket.
Is it too early to talk about a WINDFALL PROFITS TAX on FARMERS!
Ethanol is the root cause of this fiasco.
Where is the evidence of the brink of a recession?
Are you going to buy water?
“While the boom is reversing decades of decline in U.S. rural areas at an otherwise vulnerable time, it’s also pushing global food costs higher.”
Are you aware how many products are made with corn?
Better rethink!
Nope. It’s delivered.
In a pipe or in a bottle?
OK, how many products are made with corn?
When they take too much corn to make fuel that they reduce the making of OLD #7(Jack Daniels)or run the price higher, then we will see a revolution!!!
Of course, the American consumer/taxpayer has been told for decades that the farm program was to ensure pleatiful, cheap food prices. So long s—u—c—k—e—r—s!
Ethanol is one of the biggest screwing the politicians and a select few billionaires have laid to the tax payers of this country. Before long it will be right up there with the railroads and teapot dome.
And all of these: http://www.ilcorn.org/Corn_Products/corn_products.html
The items shown at your link which derive from the starch in corn are corn burning stoves. Apparently we should continue sending $ to mid-east sponsors of terror so that domestic corn remains cheap enough to burn.
My last side of beef was $700 for 220lbs of packaged beef. The next one gets slaughtered March 17th. Don't know how much more it will cost, but it will still be more economical than store beef, and will taste 1000 times better, as it comes from a small/local producer, no growth hormones, and on a straight grain diet for the last 4 months prior to processing. Ymmmmmmm.... just in time for summer.
Don’t believe I was making that argument.
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