barley?

[cowman]

With the late spring will a lot more acres be planted to barley? And if wheat is planted late and supposing we get a August frost could we be awash in cheap feed grain? Of course this is all dependent on a fairly wet summer.
Or does this sort of thing even matter, what with cheap American corn lined up at the border?
Now I'm no expert on the American farm bill but if you listen to all the rhetoric our chances of exporting anything are pretty slim...so does this mean our feed grain prices are going to come down?
It seems to me this American farm bill looks like a pretty sweet deal for the Canadian livestock producer(pretty sad for the grain farmer). I know they have the country of origin thing two years down the road...but a lot can change in two years.

[mbfarmer]

Around here there is alot of oats and barley going in...so the later spring should not change the acres planted. I wish our famous agriculture minister luck protesting the American's Farm Bill. Is this another example of tough love???

[cowman]

The American farm bill, by subsidizing the grain farmer, allows the livestock sector to remain viable. The fact of the matter is if barley was $5/bu. the price of beef would have to be so high that no one would eat it. Or maybe only imported grass fed beef. If the feeder payed a lot less for calves then the price could be $5, but who would raise calves if you were getting 75 cents a pound?
Now what if the farmer sold the barley for $3 and the government topped it up $2? The farmer is happy, the feeder is happy, the cow/calf guy is happy, the consumer is happy! Maybe the taxpayer isn't happy! This is basically what the Americans are doing.
Another thing about the barley market that always bothers me is the instability. One year it is $2 the next $4. To bad we can't hit a happy medium of say $3. Kind of get rid of the boom or bust situation.
For example some guys were getting $3.50 /bu. at the bin around here this year. What will they get this fall? Barring drought, a lot less. And maybe even with a drought a lot less! The American corn thing has brought a whole new side to barley marketing...A definitely negative side!