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cropsey, il 61731 | It really really doesn't. You can have whatever you want, but don't just think the market owes you enough to pay for it.
At any given time we can go from the least cost world producer to the highest cost producer just on exchange rate changes. The bottom line is that we grow a commodity and price is set by end user demand sometimes and big funds most of the time. Our job is not expect the price we want but to deal with the price we can get. There are things we can do with our marketing plans but we can't get $5/corn if it isn't offered or we don't add value you to it somehow.
When I bought my first steiger (RC210) it was a relic of an era of really good profits at a time when not every tractor in use had a cab. It must have been a real conversation starter in it's time. By the time I bought it, it was all wrong since no-til and mfd tractors were the only way to farm. This happens all the time as money cycles in ag. I wish that farming practices would be more independent of popular culture, but they will probably cycle as well (we really need to do what works and fits rather than what a movie star says).
If this current reset stays in place (doesn't have to, but it looks that way for now), we may watch $500K quad tracks sell cheap at auction because no one thinks they can afford the parts to keep them running (sort of like big buds almost going away). The thing is even grain farming is work and work isn't popular. Once the money goes away, job security goes up - no one else wants to do it. Some of that goes a long way in bringing rents and input costs down. If you used the good times to retire debt and more or less get in position to weather future tough times, great. I expect most of us did some splurging and made some sound business decisions (I did).
The other thing about farming is that it's running a business, and, along with working, is getting less popular. To me if some of the guys farming to make a quick buck or to shore up their ego find no satisfaction, it might make it better for the industry (who will get on the cover of magazines?). | |
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Market gutting?
