Ready.Or Not

In the early 1970s Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz boisterously advocated that farmers plant fencerow to fencerow. With a growing world population he envisioned US farmers had the ability to feed the world profitably and cheaply. In the mid to late 1970s the US was selling Russia 75-90% of their imported corn needs to a population who was starting to get and like the taste of meat in their diets.  

1974 was my senior year in high school. It was also my first year farming 200 acres crop share northeast of Oskaloosa for Walter's son Bill, after Walter, my part time employer, had passed away. I contracted my estimated share of the corn crop with Webster Elevator ahead of harvest for $3/bushel.

After harvest I paid my FHA operating note, machinery payment, and subsidized interest of 7%. I then went to Lafranz Chevrolet in Oskaloosa and paid $5000 for a new pickup. 

On the evening of January 4, 1980 President Jimmy Carter announced he was putting an embargo on grain sales to Russia hoping to punish them for invading Afghanistan. The Board of Trade was closed for 5 days following the announcement. It was a bloodbath when the markets reopened. The USA also boycotted the Moscow Olympics that year. The US never regained their domination in exports to Russia. Crop prices, with the exception of corn in 1983 and soybeans in 1988 due to droughts, didn't go back to 1973-74 prices until 1996-97. Below Mark and Becky were helping me combine probably around 1985. Mike and BJ would have been with Jan in the truck. Kurt and Karl weren't born until 1989. 

Although alternative fuels had been around for a long time the ethanol boom came to light in the  2005 to 2006 era. The whole food vs. fuel debate was going on with folks saying farmers couldn't raise enough corn to support both value added products. Commodity groups started visits to China building relationships and encouraging China to buy US farm products. Last year 60% of US soybean exports were sold to China. Crop prices improved to new highs starting in 2007 and lasting until mid 2014.

In March of 2018 President Donald Trump initiated tariff action on imported goods coming from China due to the trade imbalance. Since then China and the US have been trading tariff actions and insults against each other. Crop prices have been affected by the action since. As we observed in earlier visits, the market's focus went from tariffs to weather about 3 months ago from late May till July. However they are now again trading near the 52 week low.

Both commodity traders and farmers are convinced our current nation wide crop is not as big as the government and crop tours think and are waiting for a price rebound. We will find out in a couple of months ready or not.

Speaking of weather, we have had both good and bad this week. Rain is always welcome in August especially for the soybeans and late planted corn. Just a side note: I see on radar this early morning that Kansas is getting heavy rains. Russell who grew up in the Cedar area as a kid posted on FB early this morning he and Linda had 5 inches of rain with flooding and water in the basement. Our prayers for them and their neighbors.

However along with our rains here came two heavy wind and hail events. Below is the corn field just south of Kurt and Emily's house with about 30% greensnapped in areas of the field.

Ready or not, fall is just around the corner. Several groups have used the cabin this past week for their pre-fall get together before getting back in a schedule of school or church activities. Below is Dr. John's crew from the dentist office.

It's back to school time already. I think all six of our children's families now have kids either in high school, grade school, or preschool. Below is Elijah, Amelia, Allison, and Anton from Mark and Stacy's family.

Friday night lights are in communities all over our country with high school football games starting. This past Friday evening was kind of a scrimmage tune up night checking to see if the teams are ready or not for the coming 9 or 10 game season. Below Des Moines Christian came and scrimmaged Pella Christian. One of the DMCS coaches was Mike's old Marine Corps Colonel.

Jan and I took a three day trip to Indiana this past week. We stopped in Lafayette and visited Elizabeth who lives and works there. Elizabeth, who's nick name is Betty, is the daughter of my little sister Beth and Dan.

We had supper and a great visit with Nathan and Teresa and their younger kids, Sarah and Elijah. Their older two girls were at college already. Nathan and I grew up as neighbors and is a son of Marvin and Jean. Thank you Nate and Teresa for your wonderful hospitality.

It's getting harder to find baling wire for our small square baler. After several calls along our way we found some in Danville, Illinois. This purchase is getting ready for next summer. The forklift operator said he would deliver them to our pickup but was not ready to help load them since they weigh 100#/box. No worries. Handling boxes of baling wire has been a job at our house for 45 years.

Jan and I also stopped in western Illinois and picked up some new rolls for a cornhead we are overhauling, getting ready for harvest about three weeks away. Calmer Manufacturing makes a chopping roll we like to use.

We went to a Becks Seed Day in Atlanta, Indiana and stayed with Ken and Cheri who live near Cicero where we went out for supper together. Thanks Ken and Cheri for your wonderful hospitality and your friendship.

So while on our trip over the three "I" states who raise the bulk of corn and soybeans, we saw a lot of late planted, some replanted, and just a little prevent planted. We did see probably more soybeans than corn.

Below is a field of ours planted on June 6. It looks like it will be ready for fall if we don't get an early frost. So what are my thoughts this morning? The Carter embargo in 1980 didn't hurt Russia that much. They went and found food from other sources. However I feel it hurt US grain markets for a number of years. I don't think there have been or will be winners in a tariff war. China is doing everything it can including building infrastructure in other soybean countries to provide for it's needs. It may be a long time before our exports get back to what we experience as normal. I think we in southern Iowa are blessed to be one of the garden spots as far as crops go even though we have our share of bad bottom ground and late crops.

I'm going back to that pathetic looking sweetcorn patch story one more time. Despite how dismal it looked it just kept producing and we mowed off more corn than we used. In my life no matter how dismal things looked, and believe me they looked dismal at times, God took care of us. He taught me humility and character. I became more efficient as a farmer in hard times. I became a better marketer as a result of low markets and learning to hit singles rather than waiting for the homerun, and we as a family learned to diversify and have our risk spread out. As we go into fall thank God when good things happen and lean on Him for help when bad things come. It's the only way to be ready.