Off topic why don't farmers strike in 2017

Our crops in central Indiana look great but looks can be deceiving...lot of yield checks are showing that the heat we have had has indeed hurt more than we thought...everyone was talking 230 to 200 bu for corn....yield check are looking more like 190-170...still a very good crop but not the bumper everyone was hoping for...that being said these late season rains have assured of quite a few 65 bu beans and maybe some 70s on good ground

Shameless will have to sneak out at night and mow his way across country taking out the end of the corn fields as he goes. Then all the farmers on route can file an insurance claim for the lost corn and everyone will win....

Unit3 you are absolutely right...we are going to have alpha toxin,diplodia and all kinds of other good stuff in the corn because of these late rains..already seeing it in the corn...if the ground get too much more saturation it won take much of a wind to uproot and lay a bunch of it over as heavy eared as it is

The problem with getting farmers to go on strike is the same as it is for any industry that is made up of a large unconsolidated group of businesses and people. You simply can not get everyone to play the same game at the same time or same reasons. 

Edited by Tcmtech - 27 Aug 2016 at 6:31pm

DrAllis wrote: After nearly 7 years of great profits and now you want to strike ??? really ???

Dude....if I gotta start fu#$%% with goats I'm done. I got dad to sell all the sheep 15 years ago...I'll have a sale and quit before I start dealing with goats

1000 bushels of corn would buy a new vehicle in the 70's. Prices were a little higher than now in 73 or 74.

Never get everyone together. We are own worst enemy we will always produce till we flood the market just the nature of the beast.

The real kicker is the input costs. Sure, money can be made with $3 corn, but not with the money that you have to put into it now. A few years ago, when corn prices were $6 or maybe better, input costs went through the roof as compared to the previous years. When the bottom fell out of grain prices, the inputs stayed the same, or maybe went down a percent or two. In my opinion, that is just as big of a problem as grain prices. Farmers cam make money with low input costs and low grain prices, high input costs and high grain prices, but not with high input costs and low grain prices. I am reminded of a quote by JFK, "The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, pays the freight both ways."

couple years ago a big green farmer was farming a friends place that retired. they had bought a new combine with all the fancy extras and gave my friend a ride in it while harvesting his place. then it came time to sell and my friend didn't get a grain check. when he inquired about where his 1/2 was? the big farmer told him since he was getting SS, and that a big combine payment was due, my friend wasn't gonna get his share that year. but maybe next year! the friend had to sue him for his 1/2 of the crop off his farm. 

Was talking to a guy at Okawville last week still farming 500 acres with a 440 and 220 and a couple Case tractors. Said a guy in his area farming 5000 acres with all the latest green stuff had to ask the landowner of some of the ground he snatched up from others on a long term high rent deal had to ask for them to let his rent payment be delayed because he was still trying to get a loan to go through but was pretty sure he was going to get it but had to go to a big bank in Louisville to get a 3 million dollar loan to operate on for the year. This guy's opinion was if these prices continue it will take more big farmers out than it did in the 80s.

In most of Iowa winter wheat is not a viable option. There are no markets buying it. On Friday night's Market to Market the guest analyst suggested because the world wheat market is saturated that US farmers should not grow wheat at all. Before the 1890s wheat was a major crop in Iowa but not since then. My theory was that high humidity encouraged fungal growth in a period without fungicides. A short history of a NE Iowa flower mill I read a couple days ago said it went out of business in 1890 when an invasion of chinch bugs ruined the wheat crop. There weren't insecticides either.

High prices encourage high production so its been said "high prices cure high prices." And given enough time low prices tend to cure low prices by discouraging production. Seed costs are proportional to plant population, but crops are sometimes flexible so that cutting the population doesn't cut the production as much, but certainly cuts costs. Same thing can apply to fertilizer applications. There is some evidence that fertilizer applications tend to be greater than crop needs and removal. With a careful choice of corn variety, in 2007 I raised 173.2 bushel / acre corn with only 111 pounds of applied nitrogen after fair beans. I had MAP spread a few days before planting, I notilled the corn with the planter applying 60 pounds of N (32% liquid) 2-1/4" from the rows and I side dressed 40 pounds of N in 32% dribbling every other row when the corn was 4 feet tall. The organic matter was high so it supplied some nitrogen also. But I sure cut my fertilizer input costs, though the plant population was 34K on the high side as suggested by the seed DSM for my planned nutrition. I only tried that once.

Gerald J.

Right here by my house the smaller farmers have been paid oil & gas leases and they put in a couple wind farms. They went out and bought newer equipment, leased ground on the high side. Now what im hearing is with oil & gas and the grain prices down along with cattle is that there will be alot of ground up for grabs shortly.
One farmer is leasing everything that comes available. Another big farmer whos equipment i work on says that guy is pricing even him out! He farms 10,000 acres and lost 2,000 last year due to lease prices.

Edited by CALEBnOK - 28 Aug 2016 at 9:59am

DougG wrote: There's some guys that just file bankruptcy, put it in someone else's name and keep farming,,, live like millionaires always driving New stuff, no care in the world! But eventually it will catch them, I can kinda understand as I luv the farming life, but eventually you gotta say enough is enough!

Edited by Tcmtech - 28 Aug 2016 at 11:21am

bigal121892 wrote: So we strike, and raise less, the rest of the world continues to produce, and we lose market share, how does that help? Plus we had the opportunity to get $11.00 beans and $4.00 plus for corn for this crop and beyond. Lastly, want to get rid of low prices, create demand. For each 1% increase in ethanol demand, would reduce the carryover by 527,000,000 bushels. In other words, just a 2% increase in ethanol use, would get the carryover down to a more manageable level. But most farmers I know, barely use a 10% blend, much less a 30% blend. If we won't use our own product, or the tools that are available to us, then I think we get what we deserve.