Sorry - I am whining that $3 in the field is still $12 at the feed store.

The factors that affect the price of agricultural commodities are extremely varied across a global market, and whenever it comes up on arfcom 90% of the teeth gnashing is misinformed opinions on subsidies by people who feel they are able to offer relevant information because their daily commute takes they near a farm.

My daily commute takes me by a ranch or two.  I own a ranch, but am not a rancher, so do not see the $$'s daily.  During the drought, it was too expensive to feed, so I lease now.  Might consider getting back into it, but right now breeding stock is selling for almost $3k a cow ($1500 a heifer, and it will not produce for another year or 2).

Even though the national herd size is down the feedlots are pumping up the size of each animal with hormones and steroids. Its kind of scary thinking about all the crap they pump into the animals. Some are so big they can hardly walk and packing plants have had to make adjustments to their equipment to accommodate the larger animals.

No wait....I quit....Just gotta try not to point and laugh at them, and treat 'em like mom said. They can't help it....It's not their fault...












Fuggit!!!

Take a gander at what Deere stock is doing.

Deere dealers took in a shitload of old Iron for new, and the hit on the prices means all that inventory is going to sit, along with the new stuff nobody is going to take without incentive.

Word is Buffet dumped a shitload of his holdings.
Not good.

Yep the IRS put the brakes on Publication 946 section 179.  I predict you won't see as many new 3/4 and bigger trucks rolling around. Being 2013 was the last year, there was a noticeable uptick in new trucks being bought.

Thats not to mention their weekly lottery ticket expenses, $60,000 SUV payment, and their 12 y.o. kid's new iPhone; all of which benefit from subsidies of some sort, but hey, fuck they guy making me my stable supply of domestically produced, safe food.  The luxuries are the priorities at my house, the neccessities should be free.

Type your zip code in here to see what farmers in your area are getting for subsidies:
http://farm.ewg.org/

That section 179 was the absolute biggest real subsidy we ever got & its loss really does hurt. That one really was like something for nothing.

As you alluded to, I'm afraid that anybody in any kind of manufacturing or supply job is going to find out just how much its going to hurt. Farmers are only < 1% of the population but we spend way,  WAY more than that. This one WILL have a trickle down effect...

Commodity prices are cyclical just as in anything else there are highs and lows. A good operator knows how to survive the lows to get to the high points fully realizing that the highs never last as long as the low points do. Across the midwest there are more storage bins being built than ever before. There are also long term levels of storage of wetter corn sitting until it dries out on its own since the cost of propane to heat it in the bin drives the price down another $0.20 per bushel. Yields are also at all time highs since the ability of the geneticist to propagate a species that can survive in drier conditions and in soils not necessarily conducive to crop production is also helping in increasing yield per acre. So putting it all together with other market forces the commodity prices are lower, feed costs for livestock are lower, cow/calf numbers are lower, and the price to the consumer is not going to change much, if at all for the near future. Governmental control of the food stocks both home and abroad is one trump card that keeps many other options open. When there is an ample food supply, even at slightly higher prices, it maintains civil order, preventing massive social disruption. Its all a big cycle and the price of corn, wheat, soybeans, cattle, gas/diesel, and machinery never seem to align perfectly.

I can see the economic benefit from farmers being pretty big in your typical farming community. One year you do extremely well with your crops and instead of sending a lot of those profits to uncle sugar you go out and buy a new piece of equipment/ruck and get to write the whole thing off in that year.

In my Parish the economic effect of farming is not very large considering the oil field is 99% of all economic activity. It would not suprise me if 1/2 of the farm land down here was owned by holding comapnies of oil field barons. It seems that every time a land owner or farmer sells out their crop land, it is someone in the oil field buying it for their use.

A lot of the farmers I know are planning on storing and waiting for the price to go up, as you said.

I know I, like most others, would like to have gotten what that ultrabliberal website says we've received in subsidies.

They count things as 'subsidy' that you wouldn't even look at.

For instance, the soil conservation service has cost sharing for approved construction projects like dry dams & diversions to keep silt from runoff out of the river systems. If we sign up for one the SCS will cost share it based on 'priority', set by the SCS. Higher priority gets more percentage of cost sharing. When the the EWG does their thing, though, they count the whole cost of the nothing to do with crops/grains/commodities cost as 'subsidy'

Ya, we are rich, thats why we still use a chevy made in 1940......

Everyone around here is drying and storing.

Not bad news for most farmers I talk to, they're loving the low corn prices.

If your a milk/meat operation that is true. If you are a crop farmer, not so much.

No shit!!
The Citots and willfully ignorant hear "Subsidy" and arrogantly assume "Free $$$".
Every one of those listed in this county, except one or two, I know for a fact, were listed for NRCS conservation programs related to soil conservation and waterways.

The notion that most of the $$ on that fucktarded list is coming from Conservation programs, that only PARTIALLY reimburse the farmer for land use, labor, fuel and equipment operation, saving the taxpayer billions over the Govt. conducting the same project, never crosses their tiny little minds.

We got 3K to restore a Riparian buffer zone and banking, that the County tore up maintaining the drain...and it cost us 6K.
Nice to hear I'm on welfare, for not letting the Govt. fuck up my fields for free, and leave me with a huge liability.
Citots can kiss my hairy ass.

There is a shitload of corn standing in snow covered fields, and there is no more room in the bunkers...anywhere.
I don't know if anyone even thought about firing up the dryers here.

One thing is for sure.
With Mexifornia in a drought and driving prices on specialty crops, and corn in the shitter, a bunch of old Veggie equipment will be getting dusted off come spring.

Not like they haven't been making a killing.

 

Sounds like it is time to fire up the stills.  We only have a couple of specialty places that sell E85 here.  I'll build a high compression 340 for the Valiant once it becomes common.

How much money do farmers make then? Serious question. I never get a straight answer when I ask.

That sort of depends on a lot of different things. It's not a union job with step raises.

Farmers are the same everywhere. Fucking whingers and whiners and the first to take the governments money.

That deserves to be re-stated and emphasized.

If the system was allowed to function as strictly supply-and-demand, and people were forced to pay a fair price for what food production really costs, the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments would be colossal.

Go out and raise a tomato plant.  Figure in the cost of your time, your land, your taxes, natural or chemical fertilizers and pesticides, water, marketing and packaging.  Then double it because you really have to raise TWO plants because, no matter how careful you are, something might happen to one of 'em.  Now sell all the tomatoes for 49¢ a lb. and see how much profit you walk away with.

On the bright side, if this were to take place, a lot more people would have a garden in their back yard and we'd be importing a lot less produce from Mexico and Chile.  

This is the main reason.  Every local elevator around here has employed as much temporary grain storage as they can find room for.

You will find that the overwhelming majority of the filthy rich have substantial holdings in agricultural land. Big Ag has the biggest say on land zoning and hence release of residential land which artificially raises the cost of living and the ability of the average person to even be able to garden for their food needs. Their power is not only on food prices. Big family farms are hanging on because they benefit from it too especially when the local government "decides" they can sell off in subdivision or play the new game in town. They are totally protected.

Simple answer is "Too much" obviously, which is a quandary.

If I pay myself less than Minimum wage, I couldn't afford to pay the employees some years.
Both would be a labor law violation.

Just as a 'general' idea, for return to land investment, you can figure ~ 2-3%. If land is bringing $10,000 per acre, the before expense (real eastae taxes, insurance, maintenance or land & interest payment) you're looking at around $250 or so per acre.

Profit off a crop is highly, highly variable. Depends so much on the region, crop grown & the growing season. 'Here' in the corn belt, profits (minus land cost, growing expense) can be less than nothing to maybe $100/acre. 1000 acres of corn = $100,000.00. Out of that you have money to pay your takes, make machinery purchases, land payment, return to management & living expense.

Most of the corn belt did have a record crop this year but because of the drop in prices & added expense of handling the extra crop, the profits will be down significantly from last year. My corn probably made 60bu more/acre this year than last. Sounds great, right?  Just the extra trucking, on a per acre basis, cost me an additional $70/Acre. That does not count the added crop drying cost, added wear on everything from the combine & corn head to the augers that mover the crop into & out of the grain bins & added fuel it all took. One of my augers gave up the ghost ½ way through harvest. One new auger = $9,800. The added nutrient removal to the soil is astronomic, in itself.

I can hold an average to somewhat above average crop in my bins. Because this one was above that & there was nowhere to store the extra crop, it got sold out of the field right during the harvest low prices, so much of the extra crop did nothing to reimburse the added expense.

Bottom line; Its a get rich quick scheme that I continue to wonder why more aren't taking advantage of...

This is why corn is prices so low. There is a crap load of it.