Posted on 06/04/2008 4:08:53 AM PDT by decimon
“cut back on fertilizer or search for manure as a substitute.”
Bad tomatoes?
But we have to get over our “addiction” to oil! (Which makes fertilizer for farmers, who grow food.)
Who knew?
Just take a truck to Washington DC. There's plenty there.
Or hail, or freeze, or poor germination due to low soil temps or too much rain, or..or..
I always blanche when I pay my fertilizer bills and I'm only paying 1/3 of it as an absentee landlord. When I think of the total amount paid by the tenant and myself, I really blanche.
But there are those on this forum would maintain that NOOOOO Farm Bill support for our nation's farmers should ever be passed by the legislature. Which is foolishness.
Those free market libertines don't have a ounce of common sense. One even posted on this site (paraphrasing) "who cares if the American farmer goes out of business we will buy our food wherever it's the cheapest" . Idiot poster thinks other countries like Russia and China will sell us food in a worldwide drought condition.
I have some horses who will fertilize for nothing more than the price of hay... ;)
Exactly. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the latest recent attempt to get S. Korea to actually open their border to US beef imports.
They talk and promise, promise and talk and when the date actually arrives for shipments to start, they renege due to political pressure from their own ag lobby.
It simply isn’t going to happen and as you suggest we’re foolish to think the rest of the world would export food to us without charging both arms and both legs.
Somebody needs to invent fertilizer made of solar power so we can eat “green” and feel good about ourselves.
This is a 1 yr chart for the ETF MOO, which invests in agribusiness companies, including several major fertilizer companies. I've been invested in it for awhile, and have been happy with the performance.
If I have to continually pay more for food, I figured try to find a way to make money off the rise in food prices.
...and the principal reason is that fertilizer isn't made from oil.
There are huge Tomato fields around my old homestead that are fertilized with a sprayed manure mixture a few weeks prior to planting. Stinks up the place when the wind shifts.
MAP was $220/ton now projected to go to $1200/ton next spring. Presently $800/ton.
Hey Gabz!
Check this out!
Garden Ping!!!!!
I’ve been using cow manure compost to fertilize my yard and garden. My plants grow like mad, and water usage is way down.
“If I have to continually pay more for food, I figured try to find a way to make money off the rise in food prices.”
Glad to see another investor who thinks/invests as I do. :)
The farmers around here know the score. There are 700 acres of soybean around me this season, versus sweet or field corn in other years.
FIL’s only planting field corn this year to cash in on the ethanol boondoggle; nearly $6 a bushel! Unheard of in years past.
When people we meet ask my husband what we 'do', he sometimes replies that we are professional gamblers. He will then smile and tell them that we farm. There is an awful lot of truth in the gambler statement, though.
Actually, I think that 'scared' is a term somewhat misused here, as I believe that you wouldn't farm if you were scared. You just have to be prudent and weigh all of your options harder than you might in years past.
This year we decided to plant field corn on irrigated ground, which reduced our 'usual' corn crop by 60%, but it takes the rainfall question out of the equation. We are having a smaller cotton crop this year as well, as it requires high amounts of nitrogen (not mentioned in the article). Soybeans actually fix nitrogen in the soil, so they are always a good rotation crop regardless of the market price. We have more soybeans than usual.
Thanks for the ping.
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