Corn Prices

[88 Bound]

Did not mean to turn this into a bickering match, I am very familiar with the industry and have worked in it for my entire adult life (15 years). I am PRO agriculture, it feeds my family. You guys have great points, but not all grain is harvested at once, harvest works its way north. Seed price has not increased much over last 5 or so years and the Technology in the bag easily offsets the price increase. Diesel today is cheaper than it was in 2018 and pretty close in price to 2019. Fertilizer is high this year but it has always fluctuated greatly! Again, my only point was that a farmer benefits from the higher corn prices so I will gladly pay an extra couple of bucks a bag for deer corn!

Agreed on all fronts. I appreciate the discussion.

[Longhorn95]

10.20 per 50# at Jupe In Adkins.

[Smeone]

Why do they make gasoline out of it when it is much more economical to make gasoline from petroleum? Only our wonderful government can answer these welfare questions.

ethanol is an oxygenate that replaced MTBE when MTBE was outlawed

ethanol also raises the octane rating of gasoline so that is good for refiners they can get more gas out of a barrel of oil with a lower octane rating and then blend in ethanol to bump that rating up

also with ethanol in the picture it helps to set a baseline price for production which helps keep land in production and being planted......it also helps to REDUCE farm subsidies since most subsidies these days for row crops only kick in when the price of the commodity goes below the cost of production.....so with ethanol use in the picture that helps keep the price above the cost of production

and again that also helps keep more land in production instead of being let fallow.....farmers can also make improvements when they can sell above the cost of production on a consistent basis....they can tile fields, they can clear tree lines, remove fences to expand fields, and invest in technology to get more production per acre

if prices are low and farmers look to only plant 80 million acres then you have 80 million acres of production to be allocated to all users......if prices are bumped up because of stable markets like ethanol then farmers can bump production to 85 or 90 million acres and then that is more production for the market to use dollars to fight for.....ethanol may lose some of that fight, but without that stable market in bad years land will be fallowed or not improved

also to be clear there are no more subsidies for ethanol those went out in 2012 (may have been earlier) so ethanol competes for corn on a level field

ethanol does not use the totality of the corn crop either....it only uses the starch......the oils, are removed prior to fermentation so that product is still available and the end products of WDGs or DDGs are very high quality cattle feed and can work on pork and even poultry feed

cattle do not make use of the starch in the corn they simply burp it out or fart it out so it is wasted on cattle on a full corn ration.....they do make very good use of the WDGs or DDGs

so ethanol is not a huge harm to cattle feeding demand...it is cheaper to truck the DDGs and probably about the same to truck the WDGs in a per unit basis when looking at a cattle ration.....you are not having to truck the starch that is of no value to cattle and you are not having to truck as much water with DDGs that is of no use in a ration

#2 corn is 15.5% moisture while DDGs are 10% to 12% and no starch in the DDGs so less trucking of water

WDGs can be 65% to 70% moisture, but still no starch to truck and most places are drying to DDGs to make a better product that stores longer

ethanol of course creates jobs in the USA especially in more rural areas where lobs are more scarce......this as opposed to exporting raw corn that creates few if any value added jobs

the USA exported 1.36 billion gallons of ethanol in 2019-20 and 10.53 million tons of DDGs

that represents a lot of value added jobs for the USA vs exporting the raw corn....and make no mistake if the markets want the product they will take the raw product if they have to and refine it elsewhere

the USA exports products because we are a free market economy (for the most part) we are not like Argentina or Brazil or Russia where exports will be shut off and farmers will take a hit on prices......but of course that is not entirely true when the USA decided to embargo a country or there is a trade dispute with a country and that country fights back with USA farm products import fees.....but that is hitting their population right at the base economic levels while the USA is often embargoing garbage products that out citizens would be better off never buying in the first place especially from unfriendly countries

there is a great deal more to ethanol than simply "they use corn that I could otherwise buy cheap for deer feed"

ethanol is a stabilizing factor in the market that helps provide an end user that keeps production levels higher over all year in and year out.....without that the production volume and acres planted would swing much more back and forth and that is not good for farmers to make decisions with year in and year out when they are allocating acres to various crops or considering if they are even going to plant all their acres much less invest in their farm to be more efficient or to produce more per acre and unit of fertilizer and seed

[Bayouboy]

And, oil companies get credit$ for processing renewable fuels.

[Hoss163]

So y’all are saying go ahead and go to every allsups around and buy all of the 8.99 corn they have.

[Texastechred]

Most farmers have to sell when they harvest, they don’t have the storage to hold the grain and even if they did the bank is holding an note and is calling to collect. Prices are high now and from the outside it appears a farmer is making a killing, watch the prices drop end of July beginning of August when farmers start harvesting. They could find a buyer now and contract tomorrows corn at today’s higher prices but if they contract 2mil lbs, they better have 2mil lbs come August.

Exactly.

[Dale Moser]

ethanol is an oxygenate that replaced MTBE when MTBE was outlawed

ethanol also raises the octane rating of gasoline so that is good for refiners they can get more gas out of a barrel of oil with a lower octane rating and then blend in ethanol to bump that rating up

also with ethanol in the picture it helps to set a baseline price for production which helps keep land in production and being planted......it also helps to REDUCE farm subsidies since most subsidies these days for row crops only kick in when the price of the commodity goes below the cost of production.....so with ethanol use in the picture that helps keep the price above the cost of production

and again that also helps keep more land in production instead of being let fallow.....farmers can also make improvements when they can sell above the cost of production on a consistent basis....they can tile fields, they can clear tree lines, remove fences to expand fields, and invest in technology to get more production per acre

if prices are low and farmers look to only plant 80 million acres then you have 80 million acres of production to be allocated to all users......if prices are bumped up because of stable markets like ethanol then farmers can bump production to 85 or 90 million acres and then that is more production for the market to use dollars to fight for.....ethanol may lose some of that fight, but without that stable market in bad years land will be fallowed or not improved

also to be clear there are no more subsidies for ethanol those went out in 2012 (may have been earlier) so ethanol competes for corn on a level field

ethanol does not use the totality of the corn crop either....it only uses the starch......the oils, are removed prior to fermentation so that product is still available and the end products of WDGs or DDGs are very high quality cattle feed and can work on pork and even poultry feed

cattle do not make use of the starch in the corn they simply burp it out or fart it out so it is wasted on cattle on a full corn ration.....they do make very good use of the WDGs or DDGs

so ethanol is not a huge harm to cattle feeding demand...it is cheaper to truck the DDGs and probably about the same to truck the WDGs in a per unit basis when looking at a cattle ration.....you are not having to truck the starch that is of no value to cattle and you are not having to truck as much water with DDGs that is of no use in a ration

#2 corn is 15.5% moisture while DDGs are 10% to 12% and no starch in the DDGs so less trucking of water

WDGs can be 65% to 70% moisture, but still no starch to truck and most places are drying to DDGs to make a better product that stores longer

ethanol of course creates jobs in the USA especially in more rural areas where lobs are more scarce......this as opposed to exporting raw corn that creates few if any value added jobs

the USA exported 1.36 billion gallons of ethanol in 2019-20 and 10.53 million tons of DDGs

that represents a lot of value added jobs for the USA vs exporting the raw corn....and make no mistake if the markets want the product they will take the raw product if they have to and refine it elsewhere

the USA exports products because we are a free market economy (for the most part) we are not like Argentina or Brazil or Russia where exports will be shut off and farmers will take a hit on prices......but of course that is not entirely true when the USA decided to embargo a country or there is a trade dispute with a country and that country fights back with USA farm products import fees.....but that is hitting their population right at the base economic levels while the USA is often embargoing garbage products that out citizens would be better off never buying in the first place especially from unfriendly countries

there is a great deal more to ethanol than simply "they use corn that I could otherwise buy cheap for deer feed"

ethanol is a stabilizing factor in the market that helps provide an end user that keeps production levels higher over all year in and year out.....without that the production volume and acres planted would swing much more back and forth and that is not good for farmers to make decisions with year in and year out when they are allocating acres to various crops or considering if they are even going to plant all their acres much less invest in their farm to be more efficient or to produce more per acre and unit of fertilizer and seed

Big, long, way....to say "It's moronic to use our food to make (poor) gasoline out of, and only the government could rationalize any semblance of an argument to the contrary".

[Smeone]

And, oil companies get credit$ for processing renewable fuels.

this is incorrect

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/biofuels/use-of-ethanol-in-depth.php

In 2011, with the U.S. ethanol industry well established and because of concerns about the federal budget deficit, the U.S. Congress let a 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol blenders and a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports expire at the end of 2011. The tax credit for blenders had been available for three decades.

[Smeone]

Big, long, way....to say "It's moronic to use our food to make (poor) gasoline out of, and only the government could rationalize any semblance of an argument to the contrary".

but of course it is not dumb as explained

the vast majority of #2 yellow dent corn does not go to "food" that is directly consumed by humans and the major part that would produce "food" which is beef cattle eating the corn it not harmed because of ethanol production

because the cattle do not utilize the starch in the corn to make muscle they make gasses with it that they expel

the DDGs and WDGs actually make better cattle feed

and again without the baseline production for ethanol you would see much wilder swings in production and price and that would be much worse for the farmer and the consumer

and without ethanol much more expensive oxygenates for fuel would be needed and that would increase the cost of fuel....and again the increase on octane with ethanol blending reduces refining cost and increases gallons of gas per barrel of oil

ethanol has been shown to be net energy positive as well all of the past studies that showed otherwise have been debunked

[Arrowsmith]

Meat prices next.

We have 4 hog houses within 2 miles of us here in SE Iowa. The one pictured is our neighbor's and it hold 1250 hogs. JBS pork in Ottumwa just north of us slaughters 20,000 hogs a day. My neighbor said the rising feed/corn costs is already affecting the pork and beef prices.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloeso..._medium=social

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[tps7742]

And, oil companies get credit$ for processing renewable fuels.

Bayou
You USW folks don’t be so greedy next January, do your part. Remember all of the poor ex USW retired folks on a fixed income barely getting by and eating dog food.

[Bayouboy]

Bayou
You USW folks don’t be so greedy next January, do your part. Remember all of the poor ex USW retired folks on a fixed income barely getting by and eating dog food.

Marathon just sold Speedway for 21 billion. They can afford to throw us a little cheese
I told folks on here to grab Marathon stock at $20 when Covid was killing stock prices. It is over $60 now. Quiet a few of my coworkers are now young millionaires. They bought all the company stock they could with their 401K.

[Bayouboy]

this is incorrect

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/biofuels/use-of-ethanol-in-depth.php

In 2011, with the U.S. ethanol industry well established and because of concerns about the federal budget deficit, the U.S. Congress let a 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol blenders and a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports expire at the end of 2011. The tax credit for blenders had been available for three decades.

Ever hear of pollution credits that aren’t used or needed being sold?

[tps7742]

Marathon just sold Speedway for 21 billion. They can afford to throw us a little cheese
I told folks on here to grab Marathon stock at $20 when Covid was killing stock prices. It is over $60 now. Quiet a few of my coworkers are now young millionaires. They bought all the company stock they could with their 401K.

Good for them on taking advice and helping their future out.

[chrigging]

$9.30/bag in Rocksprings at Steve's