The livestock industry and others that use corn as key input are calling on Congress and the administration to modify or suspend the ethanol mandate for the 2012 corn crop. Pressure for modifying the mandate is also coming from a hunger community that is fearful that a further rise in corn prices will trigger an
Multiple predicaments: One core solution
Production destruction leads to demand destruction
Analyst/corn farmer Jerry Gulke recently talked about the impact of the drought that has now spread over more than half the country on this year’s corn crop. He characterized the situation faced by farmers as production destruction. No one can disagree with that description. A July 29, 2012 article written by Chris Lusvardi of the
China’s agricultural future: Adopt developed technologies
China is a grudging importer of corn and pork, preferring instead to increase domestic production
As the most populous nation on Earth, China has intermittently been seen as the solution to the problem created by the ability of U.S. farmers to produce more than they can sell at a profitable price. Sometimes the discussion is focused on cotton; at other times it is corn or soybeans. Today, it is porkPink slime An object lesson for the meat industry?
With a long-term decline in per capita consumption — 94 pounds per capita in 1976 to 60 pounds per capita in 2009 — the last thing that U.S. cattle producers need is the current controversy over “pink slime.” And with the controversy in full swing, they certainly don’t need industry and political leaders fighting the
Research needed to improve crop adaptation to changing global climates
At the last minute — actually during an extension of time — the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Conference of Parties or COP17) in Durban, South Africa late last year, came to an agreement under which the participating nations committed themselves to extend the Kyoto Protocol and work toward adopting a new
Do North American Farmers Really Feed The World?
We recently ran across a belt buckle from the 1980s that read, “The American Farmer feeds the world.” For many producers, that statement underlies much of what they do from their on-farm decision-making to the policies they support. As the 1996 Farm Bill was being debated, we remember talking to farmers who wanted to “get
It’s Different This Time — Just Like The Other Times?
As we write this column, March 2011 corn futures closed at $6.87/bu., wheat at $8.53/bu., soybeans at $14.33/ bu., rice at $15.80/cwt, and cotton at $1.67/lb. We are seeing a second wave of a general price increase for commodities that began in late 2006 and saw its first peak in 2008, followed by a retrenchment.
Ethanol And Oil Subsidies: Competing Claims And Self-Justification
Acommon question we hear when we tell people that we are agricultural policy analysts is “Well, whaddya think about ethanol subsidies?” That question becomes critically important as the blenders’ credit, the ethanol import tariff and the small producers’ tax credit face a deadline of December 31, 2010 for renewal by a lame-duck Congress. Todd Neeley,
Global Grain Reserve Idea Gaining Momentum – for Oct. 7, 2010
During the decade from 1996 to 2006, the world became accustomed to stable crop production levels. Production problems in one part of the world were balanced out by increased production elsewhere. In such a world it was easy to argue that reserves were unnecessary, because there would always be someone with a supply they were
Battling World Hunger By Increasing Global Production?
U. S. farmers began to believe that they had a responsibility to increase production and exports so that the hungry of the world could be fed. For some time now, we have focused our attention on the twin issues of production and exports of major crops as a way of examining the export-oriented policies that
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
