Depressing Prices!

[cowman]

The price for most ag commodities seem to be very low compared to just about everything else? Steel, gas, fuel all seem to be moving ahead, but ag prices seem to be poor?
Usually if cattle are down then grain is up but not this year? As the media focusses on the BSE crisis and the plight of beef farmers, the grain farmer seems to have fallen out of the public eye, and yet grain and oil seed prices are pretty dismal? In the meantime most inputs have gone up?
Hogs are a pretty decent price and with cheap feed you would expect the hog producer must be doing well? And yet they are leaving the industry in droves, why is that? How does any industry survive when everyone quits?

[nw9flynn]

I think that the hog operations that are still in existance and the new ones tend to be larger. Their umbrella group does a lot of lobbying on the part of producers, and it wasn't too long ago that they were complaining about the prices. The beauty of hogs ( pardon the pun) is that they can produce several litters a year so when the prices are up, they have product ready to capitalize on a high market. The beef cycle takes longer and if cattle prices happen to go up after we sell our calves it really doesn't help much . Hog operations are changing though. Used to be farrow to finish, now its farrow to isowean and then the next size, then the feeder barns, so anyone that is serious about either getting in the business or staying in it has to be able to adapt to the market.

[mike-il]

The big guys are waiting for the family farmer to fail so they can buy it, then look out. In these times if you don't run your farm like a business, you are doomed.

[mike-il]

farms should have always been run like a business because they are one.

[cowman]

Actually if most farms were run like a real business, then we would sell them? Because quite frankly the profits from agriculture are basically a joke compared to just about any other industry?
I will note that the youger people seem to realize this and are leaving the farm in droves. So all we have left is the farmers who are too old to leave or the "addicts" to a lifestyle!
Perhaps when the day comes where the corporations own the farms they will actually be run like businesses...unfortunately the boys who run the corporations aren't quite ready to take over just yet! Probably figure they can keep squeezing the peasants for a few more years before they've all died off!

[cowman]

When the older farmers don't have kids that want to take over the farm, and they decide to sell, the livestock may not be worth as much as they had hoped but the land will have increased a huge amount over the years.
So the original investment in land has earned pretty good interest over the years, plus providing a living, even it if isn't 'high on the hog'.

[perfecho]

What other business has a national policy on keeping prices low? (Cheap food policy)What other business increases inventories (herd or acreage size) when the future looks bleak, so as they think they can make a living.(tongue in cheek)Usually it is only artisians who will take on outside jobs to support their passions. Other commoditie driven sectors have "unions" to help maintain production and prices. (OPEC) And even oil barons are "independant", the difference is that they WILL control supply, percieved or actual, to maintain a level of profit.