Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The outlook for the agricuiture economy.

What do you folks think about it?

That outlook is what it's always been... A rollercoaster ride.

Only now, there are less and less on the rollercoaster.

America and the world better start looking for alternative places to feed people.

If fuel prices stay put it will be a big help. It will make life a little bit easier and be interesting to see what happens to the price of fertilizer and wrap.

With the US$ skyrocketing, crop pricss are necessarily under a lot of pressure. Input prices are unlikely to fall with it, and certainly not enough to off-set it.

Same as always. For every 10 years, about 3 boom through the roof then 7 crash through the floor.

5 years ago corn was making a killing. Today it's beef. Tomorrow it will be whatever the speculators have pushed it toward. Who knows? Wheat? Beans? Switchgrass?

My guess would be oil too. After they tanked the prices and bought past their limits of cheap oil.

Those that can farm and manage, will be OK, and the ones that can't, will go under, same as always. miles

If you are selling at a loss management has nothing to do with it. The people with enough money in the bank survive and then buy the little guy out.Thats why there are less farmers all the time.Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. ED K

At present prices and averaged yields banks cannot make loans cash flow so what's taking place here is that the insurance folks are computing component cost vs max insurance payment and the farmer is going to have to come up with the difference! All farmers need is a decent price for their production but there is only so much can be done to enhance max yield so if Americans want to continue to eat on a regular basis.....they best be praying that commodity prices keep the farmer in business!! Unless component cost decrease in relation to current prices....the schitt will hit the fan!!

We still have drought in some areas, lots of land lying fallow, and haven't been planted for awhile. I live in town and have a garden that feeds me for a few months. But water costs went way up.
And I've noticed last couple years fewer local farmers at the farmers market. I keep hearing that lots of agricultural land being sold off, as farmers can't make them go at a profit. Sad. But I hope this land isn't being sold off to out of country investors.

The good managers know that the bad times are coming and save for it, the others spend like it will always be good. I have lived in farm country, worked on, and known farmers all my life and have seen this played out over and over. miles

Most every cow/calf operation around here in the 'sixties is still going on the same grass and wheat pastures, often by the offspring of the 'sixties owner.

The old time cattlemen lived by one rule..... when it's time to ship your calves, ship them.

Meanwhile, the guys buying yearlings to winter on wheat pasture have changed faces on a regular basis.

The difference is that the first is dealing in cattle, and the second is dealing in money.

I heartily disagree.

Just how many years of government interference, drought, high operating costs, disease, and environmental terrorism should a "good manager" save for?

To save for the bad times, one most first have enough to live on, from the good times, and have enough left over to build that hedge.

Maybe it's different where you live, but I have travelled extensively throughout the U.S., and have personally witnessed millions and millions of acres of land that were farmed and ranched in days gone by that lie dormant and unused now.

Must be tens of thousands of "bad managers" out there, because sooner or later something forces them out of business.

Down in Florida, Citrus is taking a pounding from disease. Crop down to about a half from say 10 years ago. That's big bucks.
Soybeans, tobacco, peanuts and truck farming are doing well.

A lot of that fallow land is put into various set-aside programs by excellent managers.

A good manager manages the investment. A farmer farms the investment.

The bad manager does "what they have always done", the good manager does what it takes to generate the best return.

Management isn't just about cash management, it's about managing inputs, crop selection, disease management, harvest timing, sales timing, hedging, customer relations, risk management, and so on.

And a lot of those places are not farmed or ranched now because they went broke for various reasons. I know the families that used to farm or ranch them.

Just curious how many that have all this "management" advice actually make their families' living in that?

That is a good question. Many farmers around here are working jobs on the side just to hold on to the farm.

Its like i tell people. If thats all it takes to make it why don't you go borrow about 3 million and jump right in. It takes x amount of fertilizer and sprays and smarts to get a crop. No management in the world makes up for selling at a loss. I have survived some hard times but then my cash input was not near as high. ED K

Amen.