Farmers are stupid!!!!!!!!!!

[carebear300]

As the years pass by I see it happening again and again, the price of a certain crop becomes attractive to produce and what do we all do we grow twice as much to make all that extra money. We create an oversupply and we have to battle lower prices for ten years again. We could if we ever took the time, to learn from the arabs. When the price of oil rises they only produce so much, trying to keep the price as high as possible by resstricting the number of barrels of oil that are produced each day. Easier said than done with a bunch of independent and contankerous farmers though, but the day may come in the future, if not the farmer will become an extinct part of the history of this planet like the dinosaur.

[ivbinconned]

Among the Arabs a very, very few are incredably wealthy. They have no diversified economy and the vast majority are very,very poor.

Farmers are not stupid...just un-informed, un-organized and divided and depressed. When was the last time you saw a positive headline in the western seducer?

[cowman]

Well I sure hope farmers get out there and grow lots of barley! Pour the fertilizer to it and forget the summerfallow! Might make a dollar on these darned yearlings yet!
But I do know what you mean. One good year and bingo...everyone forgets the last five! High prices are usually their own cure? As are low prices?
I suspect we will have a fairly "yellow" year here as every possible acre will be in canola! The price is there and some old boys are getting very impressive yields!
This is our "canola" year in the rotation.

[cakadu]

Carebear, I think many producers are caught up in "commoditizing" everything and this will be no different. It may be somewhat premature to start growing all these things when the facilities are not yet in place to process a whole lot of it and certainly not in an efficient manner.

I don't believe we are yet looking at the true costs of alternative fuels. In order to determine their worth, we have to do a full accounting of the costs.

If land is ploughed up to make way for more crops, that will release a whole lot of carbon, so the carbon sinks are gone. Will all of this new crop be put in by conventional means or by no till practices? Either way, there is going to be a whole lot more fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide used.

We will be trying to force the land to be even more productive and do more than ever and it will get depleted even faster....meaning more chemicals.

I am all for finding alternative fuels and renewable sources. I just hope we take the time to do a proper accounting of just what it will really cost us.

Cowman, my cynicism and pithiness is coming out this morning...better have one more coffee - since when does barley, snow, canola count as a rotation?

Here's looking forward to the chinook.

[nakodo]

right on cakadu, this has all the indicators of a speculator driven market based on US corn for ethanol, as some US ethanol plants are going bankrupt recently the bubble might burst......planting decisions, use proper rotations, good management and risk management, wall to wall yellow be it canola or barley or whatever based on bio-fuel might not be the right decision come fall winter 2007?