IMHO this comment below is better than the story it was posted about... (above). SO true, but everybody's lost sight of it...
flyingfarmer
Nebraska City, NE
10/11/2016 09:48 AM
Great. Maybe we all can raise 100bushel plus beans and then it can be worth $1.47 a bushel. Here is a little marketing 101 for all the farmers out there. If you go to a farmers market with 2 apples and three people want them, you get $10 profit above cost per apple easy. 3 apples $1 an apple 4 apples $.25 40 apples $-.05 So now to counter this, everyone in this industry is suggesting we bring 150 apples to market, you know, make up the losses via volume. So instead of telling us how to flood a flooded market with even more product, would you please take just a minute and explain how this is possibly a good idea. There is not one single industry in the world who subscribes to this failed marketing plan. Not one. Yet. Every single manufacturer of seed/chemicals/fertilizer/whatever is pushing for us to raise yields. Ever think about why that is? It does not make us as farmers any more money. But it does make them money. Our seed costs $300 a bag, our inputs are far beyond any possible justifiable return level. But that keeps the large companies going. And hey. Then we can brag about how many bushels per acre we raised. And that is the important part, isn't it? Now just consider for a moment a different take on corn. 120 bushel an acre average nationwide. Use $150 a bag seed, cut your fertilizer in half, no fancy fungicides. And. Here's the good part. $11 + corn at market. But, but, we are in a world market. Yep. Still works. The CBOT right now is basing its prices off the impact of OUR yield being in the 170s. Pulling a solid profit $900 to $1000 an acre. But, but, how are we going to feed the world that way? Honestly. NOT MY PROBLEM. I am not in this business for some altruistic goal of supplying cheap food all over the world. I am in this business to make money. Safe harvest all.
Basically that's what my seed guy used to say... he was a big farmer, owned fertilizer plants, was a seed/chemical/fertilizer dealer, and he used to comment all the time on the foolishness of the constant chase after big yields-- what he called "beer joint yields", solely for bragging rights at the local watering hole, with no thought given to profitability and return on investment. He's absolutely right.
I've been reading this sort of stuff for decades... I remember reading an article years ago by the cotton guru up at Texas Tech that said there was no physiological reason why cotton couldn't make five bales per acre... and that farmers should be shooting for those sorts of yield levels. I just shook my head, because if you want to spoon-feed and babysit every single acre and beat your brains out on a brick wall trying to make everything "perfect" to get those mega-yields, then I suppose it would be possible. Of course, the problem is that we'd be up to our eyeballs in unsold cotton and it'd be 6 cents a pound instead of 60 cents (which is ridiculous anyway-- we got 60 cents a pound in 1972 when I was still riding standing up on the front seat of Dad's old Chevy pickup... and seed was $10 bucks a bag and fertilizer was $50 bucks a ton-- and farm diesel was 20 cents a gallon... you get the picture).
We grow more than we've ever grown of EVERYTHING, and it's all cheaper than it's nearly ever been... while inputs are sky high and only going up. Plus, you get to "the point of diminishing returns" where all the easy gains in yields have been made, the "low hanging fruit" has all been picked and increasing yields is increasingly harder-- you can't just double fertilizer and get double the yield... every gain tends to take more and more effort and expense and gets you less and less actual improvement... and when the market won't pay for it, WHAT HAVE YOU GAINED??
IMHO this "feed the world" crap is THE biggest load of shite ever sold to the American farmer... it's a mantra designed to make folks feel warm and fuzzy while they're getting screwed, nothing more. Simple truth is, there's plenty of food in the world for everybody to eat, and there will be... the PROBLEM is that a lot of folks simply don't have the money to buy it... and their solution is "we should do it for free". Yeah, right-- that's a winning business strategy.
Oh well, same old story, SSDD...
Later! OL J R