Question for the real farmers.

What's going on with the grain prices lately? I'm sure the new administration had nothing to do with it. What's the cause for the increases? I'm glad to see it.

Lots of factors. Not the least of which are high exports to China and low imports from Brazil.

Droughts in parts of the world ,i heard, helped push it up for Us markets.

Yes, I researched it. Sounds like poor crops worldwide for the most part.

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Who said that?

I just Goggled it and that's the average statement from several different sources.

Mostly it is the weather. Here in the United States and in South America.

Two years of average or below anticipated crop production is showing up now. China is rebuilding their swine herd after slaughtering 100 million hogs, so their corn and soy usage is increasing rapidly. South American crops are about normal or below for a few years as well. Carryovers for corn and beans have been adjusted downward for almost a year now. Domestic demand is high and rising. Prices rising as much as they have is a way to slow usage and keep us from running real short. Planting in many areas is progressing rapidly which is a good sign as earlier plantings usually mean larger crops, but one reason for early planting is drier conditions, if we have a below average moisture year with two below anticipated crops in the recent past things could get really expensive and quickly. The bad news is if we get another short harvest then we have another whole year plus of the higher prices to slow usage.

Bryce

Well as someone who buys feed I'm certainly not glad to see it.

Bryce -- your insight and wisdom is much appreciated, and tends to agree with what I hear in the farming community. thank you again for your input.

Yes if you feed livestock, hogs, poultry and dairy the profit margins will really get narrow. Pork and poultry use a lot of corn and soy so those prices will feel the brunt the fastest. For cash crop farmers with hog herds or feeding steers they may choose to cut back or quit when you can sell corn and beans for what they are selling for now. Sure $100 per CWT on the board for hogs sounds great but when corn has more than doubled and soy up 5-6 dollars a bushel why? Not much different then trappers saying if I don't make money why should I catch them. Corn and beans find their way into almost all food and most plastic products so we will see advances all around. Just when restaurants etc. are starting to open up the prices for what is served will keep many away. For dairy when we see the schools this fall going back to mostly in class the price of dairy will go up more just in time for the big holiday cheese rush. Could be a high cost food and travel year and maybe with not too much profit.

Bryce

Was talking to a farmer at work and what he’s been hearing is china is preparing for war, who knows though!

War with who? They don't need to fight a war unless they want to use it as a method to depopulate a bit. doubt if any nation would want to get into a war of attrition with a country with 1.3 billion.
One of the disadvantages during the Vietnam war was South Vietnam had less then 20 million people, North Vietnam had about 70 million people the north could continue to recruit and draft fighting men as they had the population and the resources to do it. That was in addition to the fact that many South Vietnamese were VC or neutral.

Bryce

Yep, there are a few people on here that when they talk I listen just a little closer. Bryce is at the top of that list. Thank you Bryce.

China also had major flooding in much of their grain producing areas. Destroyed much of their crops. Xi made food waste a crime. Restaurant's are now regulated on how much food one table can order. So they know what might be coming. North Korean leader addressed the nation and told the country to "prepare for famine".

Bryce, shoujd we assume China's threat to Taiwan and their expansion in the south china sea is irrelevant ?

+1
Thanks

They already killed off 500,000 with their virus. Didn't fire a shot !!!!!

This week with the cold weather and a lot of beans in the ground makes soybean people nervous and with short covering was able to get up thru resistance, which after the smoke clears and assessed damage or not leaves the shorts ready to re enter or not.

The Asian culture is far more about patience then the western cultures. As far as places like Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places is a matter of time for them. They are growing the resources they need and are expanding faster than most of their neighbors are. If they were to make a fast move on Taiwan soon what would the rest of the world do? The Taiwanese have tied their hopes to less patience cultures and that may not bode well for them.
What we may not even begin to understand is that over time other southern Asian nations may form alliances with China for a whole host of reasons that we don't fathom at this time, much like the are doing in Africa now. They could also do those things in South and Central America as well. They don't have the money we have here but they invest their resources very differently then we do.

Bryce

Cold ground up here means...still no crops in the ground. Translates to a shortage...the longer it takes to plant.

Around here in west central Missouri a few guys were slamming in corn for about 3 days. Then it got cold, froze, rained over 3 inches, snowed, froze a few more times and no corn up......nothing around me has been planted except for the corn that will be replanted.

On the lighter soils around us a lot of new seedings and small grains have been planted. For the most part the winter wheat, winter rye and alfalfa look very good this year. Wheat has been stooling a lot. Rye is hard to kill and it is good the alfalfa stands are thick as other feed costs will be high. I have not talked with any of the coop staff lately but with oil rising like it has fertilizer, chemicals etc. which use a lot of oil and energy will be rising too. I am sure land owners lending land to farmer will soon know that prices have risen significantly and will be asking for higher rents. Getting any crop in the ground here starting around mid-April is early for us.

Bryce

Looks like somebody thinks warm weather is coming ?

In the last days there will be a shortage of food.
Get Ready.

What is stooling? Pardon the stupid question. Thanks for the dairy update, Bryce.

Surprised no one dwelled on the corn raised for alcohol and High Fructose corn syrup here in the U.S. . 25% of the corn raised in this country is used for the alcohol production in ethanol per the Clean Air Act. As people emerge from their Covid cocoon they drive more and use more fuel (ethanol). There is no other (legal) option per a California judge's ruling over 20 years ago to add to gasoline to meet the standard. There have been several other cheaper additives that have been used but the expanded cleanup responsibility placed on the manufactures made it a potential company bankrupter.........Similar to making the firearm manufactures responsible for crimes committed with guns. That "sweet" decision has greatly influenced corn production in the U.S. and demand (no matter how politically motivated) still influences price. If the Chinees/Orientals, Europeans, Russians, Wall Street traders or whoever has the money,,,,,,, their purchase dictates the supply. As everyone stated above the price will be regulated by the demand (or its potential demand). My take...................... the mike

I am not a real farmer but Hyper inflation might have something to play in also

I was running prices on a 22 rifle I bought and built in April/May 2019 yesterday I have 427 2019 dollars in that setup yesterdays price would have been more than 607 dollars probably very close to 627 a 200 dollar change in 2 years a 68% increase


so I looked up May 14, 2019 gold spot price 1294.70 and todays spot price on gold 1831.81

1831.81 - 1294.70= 537.11 a 70.6% change

Too many deer feeders.

Around here it's to many deer. The deer just help themselves. In certain areas of most local fields the combines get quieter as less ears of corn run through from all the deer depredation.

Keith

Sorry for the delay Run but :stooling" is a term that is used when winter wheat breaks dormancy in the spring and with moist, cool spring weather there are many more shoots that will emerge and one gets more heads, thus more yield if the rest of the growing season is good. Winter wheat does not like hot dry weather until it is ready to ripen. Other grain crops can do that as well. Having right growth and conditions in the fall can have the crop go into dormancy setup for a good spring too. In our heavier clay soils with cooler springs and usually good spring moisture many of the better growers can get over 100 bu. per acre during good years. This is soft winter wheat, not hard red wheat and is not as high of quality as hard red wheat is.

Bryce

New crop corn dropped a dollar this week. Feed users can book cheap corn now

"Cheap" is a relative term! Yes corn dropped about 80 cents on the market this week but closed at $6.85 which is about $3.40 higher than a year ago. $3.50 corn is probably too cheap to cover costs and manage a farm business but that is still about $120 per ton higher than a year ago and poultry, hogs, dairy and beef use a lot of corn or products that are price driven by corn. If corn continues to drop some more, we may see some adjustments in the meat and product markets but those dropped as well. Could be all aspects of the market were overbought, much like stocks are many times. The bigger news is that China is looking at quite a bit lower economic growth then originally thought and in today's world that impacts commodity markets a lot. When we have a drier spring and planting is ahead of normal and early this impacts the markets. If the nation's drought watch continues to worsen or deepen than that market very well may recover and what we are looking at today are very low numbers. The best way to limit demand and ration out supply is to raise the prices and just maybe that is working.

Bryce

Thanks.

Corn can be bought a year or two before use . Lots of chance to lock in a cheap price.

And hopefully one can deliver at the price locked. Floods, droughts, sometimes tough to deliver locked in pirce volume.
Jim

This. Lots of things going up. Not a lot of people noticing.

An awful lot of black gold (canola) going in the ground here. My dads farm is 90% canola this year. Last I heard it was $24 a bushel.

Bill Gates? That pedifile own lots of land.