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Boone Co. Iowa | I have been farming for a living since 2006, and I just finished planting our corn crop Thursday. This is the 6th season I have had this "new to me" planter, and I have never really had to replant with it. I remember a few years where we had acres and acres of ponds, etc. with the previous planter, and I remember going all around into "small" pockets and planting some early variety corn and/or beans. My point is, I haven't had to do this for several years, and it looks like this might be the year. Not to mention how, looking at the numbers, how very late this corn crop is going to be, and how many acres that get planted late, in not ideal conditions, or folks just take PP. Personally from all the information I have gathered, this year is a game-changer, and it is going to significantly reduce the corn carryout. I believe market has been complacent and been "saved" by the American farmer who, when the conditions are right, can get a bunch of corn in the ground. Improvements in the past decade in tiling, size of machinery and autosteer and lights, as well as fungicides, seed treatments, genetics, etc. have really made the corn and soybean farmer extremely efficient. I think supply of corn will not match demand this year....
But, part two is that demand has been curtailed. Ethanol plants are running at low margins and RFS waivers and trade barriers and fracking have really notched into the ethanol industry. I think that unless ownership of ethanol plants switches over to Big Oil (which is in my opinion what Big Oil wants, to buy out their best competitiors, and it really seems to have become the American Way the past decade, to buy out your competition), we really might be seeing the end of the expansion of the renewable fuels industry. Politically, backing renewables has been a national loser, as corn producing states get Senators who stick with their party (and the Republican Party is a Big Oil party - just look at EPA picks Pruitt and Wheeler and former Sec. of State Tillerson) over their state-wide industries. Grassley seems to be fighting for the corn farmer, but not enough farm state Senators are sticking with him. Or there just aren't enough of them anymore.
I am not trying to state if this is good or bad, but I think it is a pretty significant change and I think that farmer's that follow the markets and are efficient will be rewarded. I have little faith that renewable fuels will expand (here in US - I think a lot of other nations are or will expand renewables), unless and until the current ownership group goes broke, and/or Big Oil somehow gets more ownership of the biofuels industry.
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Any of you, "The crop gets planted every year..." types out there?
