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146 comments on DrumBeat: December 16, 2007
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146 comments on DrumBeat: December 16, 2007
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Nice charts here:
http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/soy/chicago_wheat_futures_market.htm
showing wheat at all time highs today.
And h/t to the site above, this chart:
http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/static/files/w_wstkuseratio.gif
showing lowest world stocks/use ratio at least since
May 1943 (Time Article-have to find it).
And here:
http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/static/files/w_wvusratio.gif
World v US Stocks/use ratio
Found two Time Articles.
One from June 42, the second from May 43.
What a difference a year makes
From June 42:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,773291,00.html
"In 1943, therefore, the U.S. Government is likely to pay for another bumper wheat crop it does not need and cannot store. Meanwhile, Leon Henderson's assurance that wheat rationing is not immediately likely remains the year's greatest understatement.
Only possible out: after the war, Europe may be close to starvation and the U.S. may be able to give its wheat surplus away. Then it can start piling up a subsidized surplus all over again."
May 43:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,851559,00.html?promoid=...
" Wheat, of all things, is no longer a surplus commodity in the U.S. Last week Franklin Roosevelt underlined this fact by suspending wheat-import quotas to allow Canadian and Australian wheat to come into the country in quantity.
Statistically the U.S. is not yet short of wheat. But the estimated carry-over by next July will be only 550,000,000 bu., less than a year's supply even in normal times; less than half the expected needs for the 1943-44 season. Moreover, most of the carry-over is Government-owned, and Congress refuses to let it be sold below parity prices (over $1.40 a bu.). Since that is much too high to make it economical for cattle feed, and since the $1.05 ceiling on corn has kept that feed crop off the market, Eastern farmers, who grow only part of their own feed, have been pinched.
Western cattlemen, looking ahead for a year or so, fear a pinch sooner or later too. If they turn out to be right, the U.S. decision to upgrade the feeding habits of the world (from plain grain to grain converted to meat) will turn out to have been one of the costliest decisions of World War II."
Today, courtesy http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/soy/chicago_wheat_futures_market.htm
12/13/07 Since cumulative wheat sales have reached an amazing 89.6% of the USDA forecast as compared to 66.7% on average, there is now talk, that stocks will at some point be wiped out and the US may be forced to curtail or embargo further sales.
12/6/07 Statistics Canada estimates Canada's 2007 wheat production at 20.05 million tons, down 21% YoY and down 587,000 tons from their September guess.
With Prices High, Farming Is Bright Spot In U.S.
Thanx Leanan. I saw a couple of firsts in that article.
The main one:
"The Bush administration has threatened to veto the bill."
And Lugar (IN)'s siding with Bush.
Not lightly considered move.
And historically, farmers only benefit about two years
and then struggle thru about 14.
Secondary in the article:
Farmers buying land.
Bad move. Buy the land in one of those later
14 year periods.
In case you didn't notice, the times are changing now...with climate change and peak oil hurting agricultural yields worldwide we're in a whole new ballgame now, I can't see the value of well-watered farmland going anywhere but UP in future...
I can't see the value of well-watered farmland going anywhere but UP in future...
Up relative to other things - perhaps. If the population collapes from some form of pandemic then perhaps not.
Only an economic/poverty pandemic (lack of food and water and sewerage and basic medical care) or a pandemic of resource wars...
Seems to me I recall the same thing being said about California real estate a couple of years ago.
I bought land in 1977 near the top of the previous cycle when corn was about $2.50/bu.. I have spent the last 30 years trying to pay for it as corn fell to as low as 1.45/bu. locally in 2005. Corn today at it's recent new high is still ridiculously under priced compared to oil, but if the anti ethanol types and the power down crowd get the upper hand, it could easily revisit the recent lows. I'm sure farm land would drop in such a scenario.
I tend to agree also for people looking for land more for personal farms you probably are looking for more of a mixed type acreage. I expect that a lot of people that now live on mini farms but have debt and are dependent on their jobs for income to try and sell as job/fuel pressures make "toy" farms unpractical. This will have a negative impact on land prices in general. Next commercial oil base farming will get squeezed like any other business and a lot of farmers are in debt so farmer bankruptcies will lower land values. Almost all the pressure on land prices has come from expansion of suburbia not the need of land for agriculture. So even if land was needed to expand agriculture the price points one would need to make it profitable to expand given the above are much lower than they are today. So a purely agricultural induced increase in land prices is at best in some far of distant future.
Short term I'd have to think that as long as oil supply is stable and we go into a recession we will see a pull back in oil prices which will probably cut the throat of the ethanol boom this coupled with the collapse of suburban expansion will probably lead to a collapse in land prices. I just can't see land prices remaining high give the general economic situation. The other choice that oil supply drops sharply and the economy slows with high oil prices still indicates to me that land prices will drop a lot.
Maybe farmers, but not much for ranchers. Cattle remain one area factory farms don't seem able to dominate. Yes, most all are eventually sent to feedlots, but no one has yet found a profitable method of calf production other than the unsubsidized, dispersed farms and ranches. Compared to the hog and poultry industries Poulan mentions in the toplink above, it's a world different.
Edit-Deleted as most covered in Leanan link's.