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S Illinois | Oh I am sure the numbers are correct. I have no doubt that the finished consumer good has a value of 10 times or more what the corn or soybean value was. That’s the basic premise for something like a farmer’s share breakfast. Believe it was about 15 cents last year. It makes for good publicity. But this idea of added value is true in almost any manufacturing industry. Does the steel maker take credit for tractors and bridges?
Tied into this is also the chicken and egg scenario. A simple extra bushel of corn doesn’t automatically make for $10 of end user value. There has to be consumer demand and there has to be processors willing to work and risk capital to turn that into something that someone wants.
Why doesn’t the same thought process be applied to the seed industry, the fertilizer industry, the crop protection industry, the equipment industry or any industry in agriculture.
Seed corn is the most obvious. Not much alternative in the system to hybrid seed corn. So if a $300 bag of seed corn can say produce say 600 bushels(3 acres at 200bpa), does the seed producer not have a right to say they added $80 of value for every dollar of value they produced(600bu @$4 times $10 final value per bu/$300)? No one is clamoring to support the seed producer. But yet they have a much bigger value multiplier.
Why are the farmers and specifically the grain farmers so special in this chain? | |
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I think we could fix some of our ag welfare issues if welfare
