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| I apologize if I seem to get combative. I like a good discussion, and I hope I'm receptive to having my mind changed. I just don't much like closed-mindedness - at least in others. (BG)
I don't know whether, once numbers do come back (if they do come back), demand will survive. Beef is so much better than either pork or chicken, however, that my guess is that it would - at least based on "eatability". The problem is - are we going to have enough of a middle class left to consume it at higher prices? Possibly not, if current trends continue.
As for getting farmland back in grass, I can only go by what happened the last three times we topped the corn cycle. It does not have to be the same, but it is all we have to go by, since at the top of the cycle, it, by definition, must look like it can never go back that low again. So, one scenario would be for grain farming to be pretty dismal - year after year - while cow/calf slowly recovers and prices remain relatively high for an extended time. Then, yes, there will be young people who will (maybe slowly) get into the business to survive, and marginal land could easily go back to grass. Especially if the government doesn't come to the rescue this time - like they did in the 80s. We need to remember that, in the 80s, both coasts were booming, and there was plenty of money to flow into the middle of the country. When I look at spreadsheets of those years, I shake my head at how much of the cash flow was provided by government checks. I'm not at all sure it will be this way *if* things repeat. | |
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Have packers beat the dog so much it won't come when they call
