The future of agriculture is going to have some rough times in the growing year of 2009. With the high fertilizer prices in 2008 along with seed and other inputs being high and the market dropping at harvest time made a large economic problem. Then this year the chemical companies have a large amount of the high prices fertilizer to sell before they can start to sell the lower prices fertilizer that we have in today’s market. With today’s market still fluctuating it is hard to tell what fuel, seed, and other expenses are going to be at planting time. On the contrary we know that the expenses around the yard and in the household are going up. The typical farmer is going to have to stay in the industry to help pull it through the hard times so there is a future for agriculture in the United States of America and not just in the foreign countries. Agriculture in the form of crops is one industry that we must keep in the United States. Without it we will have to import all of our food and that means that we would be able to be taken over extreamly easy. Towards the end of harvast in 2008 the market had dropped for beans. No matter where you went the bean crop could not be sold.
On the livestock side of things it will be even tougher for those that have ran off of their credit line to purchase feed and livestock. The livestock industry exclusively the beef industry has a major issue on their hands with this new carbon credit issue. One of the bigger issues is that the cattleman’s association is trying to push the credits through with the calves. This means that the rancher that raises the calves from birth has to pay for the credits and then the slaughter house gets the money for it. This makes it extremely hard for the rancher having to pay for the credits and then not getting any return on it. The livestock industry also has to get over the high cost of feed last year with the market not being supportive at slaughter time but also the fact that this year the prices have not gone down with the rest of the market. The cost of corn as gone down yet when you go to buy it in a three way mix at a feed store it is still high priced. Then we have to worry about selling our animals after we have invested a large amount of money into the feed.
On the livestock side of things it will be even tougher for those that have ran off of their credit line to purchase feed and livestock. The livestock industry exclusively the beef industry has a major issue on their hands with this new carbon credit issue. One of the bigger issues is that the cattleman’s association is trying to push the credits through with the calves. This means that the rancher that raises the calves from birth has to pay for the credits and then the slaughter house gets the money for it. This makes it extremely hard for the rancher having to pay for the credits and then not getting any return on it. The livestock industry also has to get over the high cost of feed last year with the market not being supportive at slaughter time but also the fact that this year the prices have not gone down with the rest of the market. The cost of corn as gone down yet when you go to buy it in a three way mix at a feed store it is still high priced. Then we have to worry about selling our animals after we have invested a large amount of money into the feed.
