Jim wrote:
Larry Caldwell wrote:
According the the Capital Press, Oregon's agricultural sales in 2007
totalled $4.89 billion. That's up substantially from 2006. With the
commodity price runup in early 2008, the year might be even better.
Maybe. Some of the price runup has been from speculators pumping money
into the futures market because stocks have been heading down. If they
think stocks are risky, they have never traded commodities.
Even so, demand is up, and supplies are tight. Things are looking
pretty good for farmers in 2008.
back in February my soybean seed supplier called me and asked how
many bags of seed I'd be needing for the next planting. I was a
bit taken back because that was a first. In years past I'd just
show up and buy seed. He indicated seed was going to be in tight
supply. that kind of follows what happened when I finished getting
the bean crop in and wanted to plant some wheat but could not find
any seed... could be interesting in about 5 weeks when I go for
seed.
I think farmers here in Nebraska pre-order a lot of their
supplies in December. I'm not sure about seed. The days of the 50#
seed bag are rapidly disappearing. A good share of the guys use seed
tenders like this: >
http://tinyurl.com/2lghh6
There still aren't a lot of guys double cropping. Wheat and beans
work here in Nebraska in combination. The seed growers would have time
to get some
wheat in after the seed corn company has the seed corn out. They have
to alternate the seed corn crop with something else anyhow. I haven't
seen anyone doing that yet.
There is a downside to the high grain prices. The big city traders
are messing up the normal grain trading processes:
http://tinyurl.com/2ft5az
Dean
