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You should not apology for corn prices

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CattleCo

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Prairie Farmer MAgazine October 2007 issue page 12.
Cherry Brieser Stout writer.....
High corn prices play a very modest role in the food price increase!
Based on $4.00 per bu corn:
$2.79 12oz box of corn flakes uses 5 cents worth of CORN!
A $2.69 hamburger 1.4 lb. requires 13 cents worth of corn for production!
A six pack of soda uses just 10 cents worth od corn for production!
One new study shows that energy prices, NOT CORN PRICES, are the driving factor behind this year's rise in food cost!!!

The American Consumer is relly needs to realize they have been on a "Free Lunch" program for many years....it is time to PAY AGRICLUTURE Its DUE!!! :D
 
$2.79 12oz box of corn flakes uses 5 cents worth of CORN!

Any idea of the volume of a bushel that 5 cents is? A teaspoon or a cup or 80 kernels of corn ?
 
Hell Porker you do the math................... :roll: Bottom line is our society does not look at the "rest of the story" before making assumptions.
 
CattleCo, low food/ag prices have helped consolidate the food/ag industries. Who is first in line when consumers "PAY AGRICLUTURE Its DUE"???
 
Meyer grocery has Kelloggs Frosted flakes today for $3.89. Once got a load of
Kelloggs floor sweepings to feed to cattle during a drought,Cattle loved it soomuch that they refused to eat baled 2nd cutting for almost a week !
 
Yes, consumer prices for processed commodity ag products seems high, especially to those who produce the raw materials.

No law is stopping any farmer from making those corn flakes, processing, packaging, even cooking and selling that meat in order to collect ALL the benefit from the raw product.

Most of us have no real understanding of all the hands a product passes through and the real costs of producing what ends up in the grocery store.

We are stunned to hear 'real world' incomes. Even low SD school teacher incomes seem large to me, even here in SD, when considering couples who teach school. I see levels between $35,000.000 and approaching $50,000.00 for each teacher listed in some school minutes in even various sized schools across the state. $70,000. to over $100,000.00 seems to me a pretty fair family income, especially with almost three months off for some vacation and improving ones education/marketability as a teacher, and the relatively low cost of becoming a teacher in the first place.

Then we look at non-production agriculture business and other business outside agriculture and are horrified at the high salaries and benefits the CEO's and upper management get. All things considered, the difference between what the farmer gets and what the consumer pays isn't so strange, after all, IMO.

Good or right, is another question. But we have only ourselves to blame if we don't look at either carrying our product on to the consumer or investing in the businesses that do so, or use other means to share the risks and the benefits among all who benefit in our product from farm to consumer.

mrj
 
"Meyer grocery has Kelloggs Frosted flakes today for $3.89. Once got a load of
Kelloggs floor sweepings to feed to cattle during a drought,Cattle loved it soomuch that they refused to eat baled 2nd cutting for almost a week !"
You cannot BS Tony the Tiger!!! :roll:
Yes I agree, the smaller producer has a unique opportunity to market his produce at the local level.......it makes agriculture a full time job. Seems the big boy us think they have the winter off. Do not bore me with ...."we have to get all that machinery ready for next year.....BS " The more acres you farm, the least amount of time you really put in during the "off season" AND you can only spend so much time "surfing the net" to do market research!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Most big acreage farmers and ranchers spend less time now, than they did when they were small to medium operators.......................... :roll:
 
Whoa CattleCo, pull up on the reins. The price of corn is not the beginning or end of the world. The market will finally take hold and solve whatever problem we may have with the price of corn.......it may take awhile, but it always happens.

Are you really concerned about the price of corn flakes....NAH! Our real concern is if the price of commodities, corn and wheat, stay at these prices, then the smaller farmers will be gobbled up by the big farmers, thus putting more of the big in control of commodities.....but they are probably the more efficient.

According to our local elevator here, there are very long lines of trucks to unload corn and it will only get worse. Just two days ago, a train load of wheat sat on a siding for a week before the elevator could even get a bid to sell it.

I really think the change is in, since the market took a dive yesterday. From here on out it will be hard for the grain market to hold these high prices.....so the price of your corn flakes should come down. If they don't, you'll just have to complain to the manufacturer......see how far that gets you.

Keep up the good work!
 
If there is any one phrase that can make me explode with anger, it is that of "more efficient" used in the context of modern agriculture.

Do you not realize that the least efficient farmer today is likely 10 times (exaggerated to illustrate a point)"more efficient" than the best farmer (or rancher) of my younger days? We are achieving "efficiencies" (feed conversion, stocking rates, weaning weights, etc.) that could only be dreamt of 30 years ago when I started into this business.

All this because we have never had the cajonies to stand up and say -"This is what I want for my product."

So we take the easy way out and try to make up for a piss poor return by increasing scale of production and trying to "increase efficiencies". We end up sacrificing more "less efficient producers", who happen to be our neighbours and friends, rather than developing a system of valuation that will offer a decent living and return for our labours.

Aaargh, why did I even start on this. . . . it is just beating an old, worn out, war drum.
 

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