the past few years. With this has come a sharp increase in the value of
arable land. Deep topsoil farmland in Iowa has changed hands as high as
$11,000 an acre recently. That’s up from about $6,000 just a few years
ago.
The shortage of arable land has gone global. Africa has seen an
explosion of activity since 2008. How big is the land grab? Who’s doing
the grabbing? It’s hard to tell as there is no central source of
information and many of the transactions are not made public. An outfit
called the Oakland Institute has been compiling information on this. From their June 8 press release:
The scale, rate and negative impact of land deals is alarming. In 2009 alone nearly 60 million ha– an area the size of France
– was purchased or leased in comparison to an average annual expansion
of global agricultural land of less than 4 million ha before 2008.
Consider these three maps. They describe the scope of what has happened in Mali, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia.
The total in these two countries alone is 460k HA or 1.14 million acres. How big is that? Big.
This is an area the size of Rhode Island, It is about 80Xs the size of
Manhattan. But this is small beer. Consider what is going on in one of
the poorest countries in the world, Ethiopia:
The total of 5.3mm acres in just this one country is equal to the size
of New Jersey. It's the same as the combined area of both Connecticut
and Delaware. If you’re thinking of a European comparison this is equal
in size to about half the land of Switzerland, Denmark or the
Netherlands. It’s equal to all of Israel.
Who’s playing in this big land grab? Hedge funds and other speculators
are big, so are a number of US Universities. From The Oakland report:
Western firms, wealthy US and European individuals, and investment funds with ties to major banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.
Surprised that Goldie and JP are involved? I’m not. Some other players:
Several Texas-based interests are associated with a major 600,000 ha South Sudan deal which involves Kinyeti Development, LLC, an Austin, Texas-based "global business development partnership and holding company," managed by Howard Eugene Douglas, a former United States Ambassador at Large and Coordinator for Refugee Affairs.
A key player in the largest land deal in Tanzania is Iowa agribusiness entrepreneur and Republican Party stalwart, Bruce Rastetter, who concurrently serves as CEO of Pharos Ag,
co-founder and Managing Director of AgriSol Energy, CEO of Summit
Farms, and is an important donor to the Iowa State University.
Major
investors in Sierra Leone include Addax Bioenergy from Switzerland and
Quifel International Holdings (QIH) from Portugal. Sierra Leone
Agriculture (SLA) is actually a subsidiary of the UK based Crad-l
(CAPARO Renewable Agriculture Developments Ltd.), associated with the Tony Blair African Governance Initiative.
Are the African countries getting a square deal? Not even close:
In Sierra Leone official regulation requires investors to pay $5 per acre, or $12 per ha, per year.
In Ethiopia, Karuturi initially received land for just $1.25 per ha, the rate was later raised to $ 6.75 per ha. In comparison, rates for Brazil or Argentina are $5,000-6,000 per ha.
I loved this quote from Oakland:
“The
research exposed investors who said it’s easy to make a land deal – that
they could usually get what they want in exchange for giving a poor, tribal chief a bottle of Johnny Walker.”
I suppose that some good could come from all of this. Clearly there is
going to be a very big push for agribusiness in Africa in the coming
years. This would suggest that a new food supply is coming to a hungry
world. It also suggests that there are going to be jobs and opportunity
in the countries involved. I doubt that this will happen in the way the
land grabbers are thinking. I’m sure that the likes of Tony Blair and
Bruce Rastetter will do just fine, but the pensioners and LP interest
are going to get clobbered when history repeats itself in Africa. At
some point the locals are going to say “No”. At $2 an acre and a tax holiday to boot I wouldn’t blame them.
.
Deep topsoil in Iowa? There was 38 inches give or take when the first settlers started farming. Now there is a couple to several inches of topsoil left across most of the state. A good portion of the states corn crop is grown in subsoil. The high prices are either for remnant land or a result of a very determined undermining in the value of the dollar.
Ninety-nine plus percent of the corn in Iowa has little (only as hfcs) nutritive value. It is only grown to feed certain types of livestock or be converted, in a grotesquely inefficient manner, to alcohol.
As for Africa, looks like you are correct. Anyone who has not read "The Scramble For Africa" by Thomas Pakenham should check it out. If history is going to repeat itself, I almost feel sorry for the poor bastards who get in the way. They will most certainly become acquainted with a piece of hippo hide (it is more likely they will be shot from the air). The flogging may even continue until the skin gives the appearance of chopped meat.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13688683
acquisitions had displaced millions of small farmers. I remember the script also. Drive them away.... been going on for some time already.
Colonialism 2.0. Next group to get involved ...
Al Qaeda
What a wonderful recruiting opportunity. On their heels will be the other mujaheddin anti- colonialists who will have the moral high ground handed to them by the New Colonial Barons.
Blackwater/S. African mercs/FFL- French Foreign Legion/ex- Soviet dead- enders will be hired to hunt the locals down from helicopters. The race to the bottom will be on.
Food security -- what is that?
Africans respond well to colonial rule, however. Should be no real revolution in terms of Al Qaida...
Alas, Africans, no matter their qualities, are no precautions against the consequences of expansion and this will follow the same pattern as usual.
sure...but what is the difference?
You think africans aren't expansionist? When presented with adequate food, they breed like locusts
What is the difference?
Quite easy to see: they breed like locusts but fail at being locusts under steroids.
Like digging one grave with hands or digging it with a mechanical digger. In one, it uses little resource and takes long. In other, it consumes more resources and take little time.
In this US driven world, the culture of death prevails. The faster to the end, the better.
you're presenting a false dilemma
False in what?
Very real on the contrary. In this US driven world, the key rule is elimination of people on basis they are inefficient at basic consumption. If people do not consume fast enough, others, more efficient at consumption, should consume.
Preservation/consumption is not a false dilemna.
It does make one wonder what these large "institutions" might know about future food prices..........land grabs are also in new zealand and new guinea......
for those interested here is everything i have on "land grabs" 8 stories....
http://nakedempire2.blogspot.com/search/label/land%20grab
you guys might be interested in this as well........ron paul (50% inflation coming)
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20110611/NEWS0605/706119982
One thing is certain. The new owners won't be able to starve Africans, the same way the British starved the Irish in the land grab in the 19th century.
Africa has a history of cutting off heads. Ask the British about the Mau Mau rebellion.
Uhuru !
Please...you think they're afraid of Africans? Nobody is afraid of Africans.
WTF...the Africans aren't doing SQUAT with all that land...time to take it away...again. See what giving it back and letting the natives decide things got us. Another major expansion is coming. The ME and Africa are about to get robbed.
But expansion and expansionists live off this kind of people.
What would have happened if they had consumed their piece of Earth like expansionists are used to?
See what has come out and how expansionists have pushed the world into a corner.
This land grab will finish exactly the same.
It is quite convoluted logics to claim superiority when one relies on practices done by people one labels as inferiors.
US citizens do need Indians, Indians are their oxygen. They cant do without it.
Still the US citizen nature is eternal and this kind of aberration will last as long as the US world order.
they are not doing anything with it. The native americans didn't recognize value in the land other than someplace to stand. Same with the Aussie aborigines and the Africans.
They are still walking 3 miles to get water from a well rather than build a fkin pipe to bring it to them.
Blue label Johnnie Walker?
Africa has been a land of opportunity for get rich schemes and cut-throats for centuries. Nothing has changed. These land grabs will be marketed 'cleaned up' to the ordinary person.
Like Brazilian beef.... raised on land previously amazonian rain forest.
I was wondering who was doing the selling and then you answered it.
They're going to need a standing army to enforce their "rights" in some of these backwater countries...I wonder who winds up paying for that ;-)
I happened to notice 40% of the US corn crop is now federally mandated for ethanol.
http://www.ciclt.net/sn/new/n_detail.aspx?ClientCode=ncagbc&N_ID=29928
Central planners, we can fix anything by creating yet another problem thus ensuring our own existence, ya gotta love em...LOL.
Standing army? I was thinking that too, how would the land ownership be enforced.
But then I remembered it is not going to be hard. Just hire a bunch of distressed and desperate people with pay that seems like a fortune and they will do anything to help "enforce".
Maybe intimidation at first then... progress up the scale.
If recent history is any guide... looking at the post, Sierra Leone is one of the countries. It got "a little" messy there ... think diamonds.
The oil E&P employ mercenary armies now. I guess the plantation owners can do the same as there will be lots of displaced subsistence farmers available for the purpose.
nmewn,
THanks for your link.
IMO, You have covered with a first post, the real issue for maintaing property rights in Africa. Zimwabae illustrates the fundamental problem for "outsicers" The people that have been there since the dawn of time, will eventually establish control for better or worse.
hbjork1,
Your welcome.
Viscerally, anything JP or Goldman is involved in (no matter how many erstwhile pension or hedgy fund hangers on) I'm opposed to. Its not done for charity I can assure you of that. They don't care whether anyone lives or dies there in the short or long term IMO as long as there is a stable labor force to work the land for their profit.
And no, I'm not a Marxist, not by a long shot. Taking advantage of an unfortunate situation has no ideological bearing...its just wrong.
Legally, there is nothing anyone can do with a tribal elder selling what "he claims" to be his or his peoples land. However, picking the bones of poorest countries of the world (by the cleverest and most contemptable) is unseemly to say the least and offers the least resistance to them as of right now.
Regards.
Rhodesia was lost because of western pressure, as was South Africa. The natives never rebelled; hell in the US they were slaves until freed by force by other white men.
The people who have been in Africa since the dawn of time will still be living the same way as at the dawn of time but/for the "invaders"
The race pimp clan that has the blood of slavery all over them can pretend to ignore reality but reality is still there
"The natives never rebelled; hell in the US they were slaves until freed by force by other white men."
You're saying the US civil war was fought over slavery?
You need to read what Lincoln said before the war...then re-read the Emanipation Proclamation given half way through that war and find for me exactly what slaves were exempted from freedom by those noble "white men"...its in Lincoln's own words Trav.
Its a lesson in words not matching deeds and their own guilt off loaded to the vanquished. Fucking absolute NE bullshit that cost over a half a million lives. Then explore the Black Codes of the North for more noble words and deeds.
Good luck with it...a public education has clearly failed you.
It is one thing to state that the US civil war was fought over slavery (which it was) and another that the US civil war was fought over emancipation (which it was not)
Slavery was a big element in the civil war making. Emancipation, not so much.
I'm pretty sure the institution of African slavery in the America's as part of an economic model was started by european blue bloods.
Their hands are just as dirty as anyone elses. By the way, what have you done for/to us lately?...that Keynes fella sure fucked things up pretty well I'd have to say.
Thanks again.
Is it 1775? I thought we were in 2011 or something and that the US took its independence in 1776.
Or is there again another double standard when it comes to the US, that the US are truly independent and under the imperium of a global power force that prevented them from abolishing slavery by themselves without relying on the pressure of foreign powers as it happened during the Civil War?
Dunno if it is lately but Europeans were architects behind the emancipation in the US. US citizens, if left alone, would have repelled it.
"Is it 1775? I thought we were in 2011 or something and that the US took its independence in 1776."
Well now, there's the thing of it.
The transposition of 2011 values & norms onto those who lived over two centuries ago.
"Dunno if it is lately but Europeans were architects behind the emancipation in the US. US citizens, if left alone, would have repelled it."
Many southern warships were built in British shipyards including the CSS Alabama and the Brits certainly had no problem converting southern cotton into shirts & pants.
But yes, the practice of slave labor was dying off in the western world, it would have ended in the South as well as more and more mechanized means came along to replace manual labor. We see this still today.
There is no getting around the fact that slavery was more about economics than "racism" as there were black plantation owners as well, mostly in the west, in Louisiana etc.
In my view, the Emancipation Proclamation was a shrewd, calculating political document meant to keep europeans from formally recognizing the South that was remarkable in its callousness toward the subjects of its text (the slaves).
They were the pawns.
Where the Union army was in control slaves remained slaves. Where the Union army was not in control (so therefore could not enforce anything) it purported to free them. It had nothing to do with human rights (as it has come to be taught in public schools across the globe) and everything to do with a cold political calculation.
It was not the intent, but by its presence in the historical record, we can see the purpose of the war was not the emancipation of one people but the subjugation of another people...namely the southern states to the northern states.
Are you such a moron as to believe that my statement and your strawman paraphrase are somehow equivalent?
I said they were freed by force, and that is correct. The war was not over slavery but freed slaves were a direct consequence of it. Perhaps you might think about shutting the fuck up; you're in way over your head
An honorable mention by one of the chief douchebags, you've made my day.
The natives never rebelled; ??????
Trav, I think you're drinking too much Johnny Walker or bathwater ?
Is this just land speculation, or will there be true development? If it's the latter, look for a massive build out of ports, railroads, electric grids, roads and irrigation canals/pipelines. It will take at least a decade before these remote areas can be productive.
Frankly, I think the investments will be a loss. Peak oil will make all farming more expensive, especially for exporting across oceans. Also, fertilizer, pesticides and tractor fuel will become too expensive and in short supply.
I guess for pennies an acre, there isn't much to lose. But it just sounds like hot money chasing a craze, just because everyone has to follow along or appear left out.
True development? On what basis? It is just expansionists looking for expanding on the little room left.
It is nothing new. Expansionists have no other solution. No surprise History repeats itself. Same behaviour, same consequences.
so after we spent a couple decades gnashing our teeth, the white people are going to go back in and create another apartheid functioning economy and then have to hand it all back over to the aborigines for a rinse, repeat of the cycle of destruction?
The natives have failed in their entire history to build out ANYTHING.
That assumes that building something was their goal. A WHITE assumptions.
"Oh look, we expected the natives to build a society just like ours, and they didn't! What a failure!"
Maybe they just wanted things to go back to the way they were before the white people turned up. i.e. tribal fuedalism.
Maybe they don't really care what pathetic armchair social scientists 6000 miles away like you think.
dltd
GFD man, you're totally right!!!!!1
which is why consumer electronics and SUVs are so freakin unpopular there. Shit, when I was a kid, I remember the natives bein naked on Natgeo..now they seem to have grown Tshirts and knockoff western luxury brands.
Aw trav7777, you shouldering the White Man's Burden all by yourself?
Trying to out-moron Kipling in the modern age?
The AG lobby is much more powerful than many realize, and Agriculture itself is being taken over by corporations with much less stewardship for the land than a family.
The corporate farms milk the government subsidies and conservation easements and lobby for favorable laws just like the banksters do.
Ethanol is a net neutral proposition - doesn't do a thing for the environment - but it sounds good (saving the children again) and raises prices of corn across the board.
It is profitable only because it is subsidised.
>I happened to notice 40% of the US corn crop is now federally mandated for ethanol.<
nmewn-
That isn't exactly true, because over a third of the corn used for ethanol comes back out- after it's processed- as DDG's, and is used for feed for cattle, hogs, dairy, chickens, etc. And it's not federally mandated. They will only make ethanol as long as it's profitable. And it stays profitable because the price of gas and crude is high. If it becomes unprofitable, they will shut down, weather there is an ethanol mandate or not. The oil companies get the subsidy to blend- not the ethanol plants.
sodbuster
"And it's not federally mandated."
I can give you 1.9 million articles that say that it is in fact federally mandated that it be in gasoline and every gas pump I stop at has a nice little sticker saying up to 10% ethanol ;-)
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=federal+ethanol+mandate&aq=1&aqi=g5&aql=f&oq=federal+ethanol&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=d320757eb127e2ba&biw=1259&bih=599
"The oil companies get the subsidy to blend- not the ethanol plants."
Why would an oil company get a subsidy for ethanol?...they don't produce it so I assume they have to buy it from those who do make it...which means...the money just goes back to the ethanol producer doesn't it?
The 10 per cent "mandate" isn't so much an ethanol thing, as it is anti MTBE, short for methylblah-blah-blah, an "oxygenate" (yet another mandate" that was required additive found to be contaminating groundwater, so was banned by government uh, mandate. Hm.
I run E85 in stuff designed to run it. I'd rather send money to corn farmers
where money can circulate locally than overseas. More promising are biodiesel efforts and cellulosic ethanol production research.
The necessary infrastructure and knowledge base that are being built in states that start with I, can make ethanol with switchgrass or hemp or whatever rather than corn, down the road.
The price of oil has a lot to do with corn prices in the form of inputs, esp. fertilizers and transportation costs. A box of corn flakes has about three cents worth of corn inside. The box itself, advertising, and transportation costs make up the lions share.
What the veggies REALLY hate, is the concept of turning corn into steak. I might be a "townie" but understand where food comes from. Granolas and Hippies are of limited utility, except for weed, tie-dyed clothing, and VW parts. Or maybe it's vegetarians.
Absolutely correct, Tedster. Ethanol was never meant to be a complete fuel, only an oxygenate to replace MTBE, which was a known carcinogen, that was poisoning our soils and water. But, MTBE was a great cash cow- it was made by the oil companies. Don't think that didn't piss them off, when it was phased out?
You hit on a very good point- corn based ethanol industry is built out as far as it is gonna go. I don't think there will be any further large scale construction of corn based ethanol plants. Corn ethanol was only the first step in a process to get to cellulosic ethanol. That's where the gallons and production potential are really at, and that's what scares the hell out of the oil companies. But if you kill the corn ethanol industry, you pretty much doom the cellulose industry also- no one will invest or support an industry that survives at the will of those idiots in Congress. And that is the reason that ethanol has been so successful in Brazil. There was no large scale oil industry to fight them every step of the way. And by the way, somebody ask the boys in Detroit, how come every Ford and Chevy in Brazil runs just fine on 25% ethanol, and has for years.
While it is mandated that X amount of gallons per year contain ethanol (I think it is 15 billion gallons), the ethanol companies will not produce the ethanol at a loss. They will shut down, cut back, or reduce operations if they lose money. The ONLY reason they can make money now, with $7.00 corn, is because the high price of crude oil and gasoline drag up the price of ethanol. Whoever blends the ethanol with the gasoline, is the one who receives the subsidy, NOT the ethanol producer.
If you want to complain about subsidies, the US spends over $80 billion annually protecting the world's oil infrastructure and transit routes. It isn't free..... not to us, just to the rest of the world who contribute little or nothing. We ought to send a bill to Europe, China, and even Japan for the security to protect their oil, as well as to Exxon and the other oil companies, for whom the US military protects their assets, too. The oil industry receives multiples of subsidies through tax benefits, depletion allowances, and other incentives baked into the system so long, that they are considered sacrosanct.
Corn is not food, it is feed. Why? Only 3% of the corn supply actually goes directly into food.
Feed is just food that hasn't been made into steaks yet. Nobody is feeding livestock because it is pretty and fun to keep in the living room.
"the high price of crude oil and gasoline drag up the price of ethanol"
Sodbuster, have you got a clue as to what you are saying? Higher crude prices reduce the quantity of gasoline demanded, albeit not by much. Then mandating a 10 or 15 percent ethanol blend is a TAX on gasoline that reduces gas consumption a little bit more, but makes for an extremely inelastic demand for ethanol. In other words, the corn price is driven to as high as it takes to produce the mandated ethanol mixture in gasoline. That is currently close to $8/bu. $8/bu for corn is so profitable that cropland is being bid away from other grains. So not only are there less acres planted in wheat and other crops, there is less corn available for uses other than ethanol. The higher market equilibrium price sees to that. As for ethanol byproducts after the energy for ethanol is removed, well that is small recompense. All in all, this ethanol mandate is driving up both the price of food and fuel. 40+% of U.S. corn going to ethanol is a crime.
SP-
As crude oil rises in price, do you not expect gasoline, diesel and ethanol to rise with it? They are all fuels, and will rise and fall pretty much together. There was a time in 2008 I think, when corn was priced about what it is now, but the ethanol price wasn't high enough, and a lot of plants curtailed production, or shut down for awhile because the losses were unacceptable. As for the cropland being bid away from wheat and into corn. As a general rule, land that will raise wheat is not good for raising corn. Beans or sorghum maybe, but not corn. I can't speak for the whole country, they have more options to the south of us, because their growing season is longer. Buy if you come to the heart of the midwest, where the bulk of the corn is raised, it's mostly just two crops. Corn and soybeans in a rotation. There is some wheat here and there, and there is some continuous corn, but as a rule, it's a corn/ soybean rotation. I don't give a shit if corn is $12, I planted a 50/ 50 rotation, and I'll do it again next year. Get it? I couldn't show you a wheat field, here. I don't know where the closest one is. If I raised wheat, there is no market here. Wheat and other crops, are a huge financial loss on $9000 ground.
There are other factors that affect the price of corn, not just ethanol. Exports have been exploding. As people's living standard's around the world improve, the first thing they want to do is eat better. Fortunately, yields and production, not only in this country, but around the world have continued to improve. We're seeing agriculture expand, grow, improve all around globe. You know what causes that? Higher prices. Higher prices give people the incentive to grow more and invest more in agriculture. You don't do that with perpetual cheap food prices. But Americans don't know that. Americans think cheap stuff is a birth-right. Americans like cheap food, cheap gas, low taxes, cheap college tuition, cheap or "free" health care, an awesome retirement account that earns a shitload of interest, and lots of "free" government services and hand-outs. That way they can buy lots of iPads and other electronic gizmo's, and get that second vacation home, and take that Caribbean cruise every year, cause dammit, they deserve it!!
"Sodbuster" you don't sound like a farmer to me, you sound like a someone with his hand in my pocket and a gun pointed at my face. Though your disinformation is hard to read, did you mention the subsidies propping up and creating the unwanted stupid boondoggle "ethanol?" I don't want it. As a consumer I reject and refuse it. Oh I don't have that choice. You win. Freedom loses my state won't allow any gas sold without your idiotic corn in it. How much tax dollars to you pocket to waste food and farmland on a scam (pretending you are a farmer?)
You might also add that cars typically get 10% less mileage on 10% ethanol. In other words, if they just reduced the size of a gallon by 10% and forgot about the ethanol it would be the same thing.
This is not the conversation I wanted to have with you...however...
"And it's not federally mandated."
Is a long from "While it is mandated that..."
It is extremely hard to begin a conversation on neutral terms when one party starts with a false premise that has to be debunked before continuing...its time consuming and my interest in seeing the other sides position wanes immediately.
While it is true the refiner gets the subsidy (the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC), it is as I assumed, to offset the cost of the product itself (ethanol) that they are mandated by law to blend in. This subsidy amounted to roughly six billion dollars last year and I don't care if the refiner, the grower or the ethanol producer got this subsidy...because it leads to the same graft & corruption we discuss here everyday.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/01/ethanol-lobby-finds-friends-foes.html
"Corn is not food..."
I'm almost speechless.
I had no idea a crop had to reach a certain human consumptive level before being classified as a food...I'm sure this will come as quite a shock to Central Americans whose dietary staples are corn & beans.
Corn, rice & wheat comprise fully 60% of the worlds food energy intake...period.
As for the rant on protecting oil supplies/routes, I agree.
The bill should be sent to Europe, China & Japan. Or they can protect their interests themselves. I've been on this for years. Of our top five oil importers only one is in the ME, of the top ten only three.
http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
>This subsidy amounted to roughly six billion dollars last year<
Really? $6 billion?? You're bitching about a measly $6 billion? Those idiots in Congress just spent trillions, and they didn't create near as many jobs or stimulate the economy as much as ethanol has done for the midwest. What nobody talks about, is that prior to the ethanol industry being devloped, there was a persistent glut of corn stocks depressing prices which were consistently below the cost of production which was the motivation for farm subsidies in order to stabilize the ag economy. Farm subsidies, a few of which are still being paid, are the carryover vestige of that era, are gradually being phased out because of ethanol. How is that not a good thing?
The price of corn has improved to the point corn growers are finally being well paid after decades of low returns. US corn production and yields have expanded by the by the amount used by the ethanol industry over the course its develpment. Corn exports have actually expanded during this period on the productivity of US corn growers. The fact of the matter is, the ethanol industry does NOT consume 40% or 5 billion bushels, but only has a net consumption of about 3 billion after the DDG's are returned to the feedlots.
I said only 3% of the corn supply actually goes directly into food. And you lump wheat and rice in with that? Where did that come from? My point was, that although corn products or by-products are found in much of what we eat, it is in such small amounts, if corn is $3 or $8, it really shouldn't affect your pocket book much- unless some greedy- ass corporation uses that as an excuse to raise prices. But I'm sure they would never do that. Also- Central Americans staple is white corn, not the yellow corn that we raise.
Look, nmewn, I know you guys are passionate about what you believe to be the facts and the truth about ethanol. But I lived on the farm all my life. And I have observed and lived the events that brought us to this point in American agriculture. And I'm here to tell you, everything is not as it seems, and our cousins in the city do not understand production agriculture. It doesn't matter what you read, because most media is urban, and the investigative reporting that is done about agriculture is typically an endeavor of someone with an axe to grind or on some self appointed crusade to save the world, reshaping agriculture to fit their perception of utopia. Am I happy with the way things are? No- Ag business has gone the way everything else has in this country. Big business runs the USDA just like they run the DOE, banking and every other governmental agency.
But the bottom line is this, Americans can have cheap food, and send the farmer a check in the mail, or we can try and get our income from the market place. And ethanol helped us get rid of the perpetual surpluses that kept prices cheap. I guess we'll soon find out, because maybe you don't know it, but the ethanol industry has already agreed with Congress to go ahead and phase out the blenders subsidy. In time we'll find out which industry is willing to pay the most for my corn. Be careful what you wish for, with the world's population expanding, living standards increasing, and nation's around the world seeing their appetite for fossil fuels growing, you might wake up and find food in this country is way too cheap.
If you think I'm gonna go back to working two jobs and have my wife work too, just so I can farm and produce cheap food- forget it- it ain't gonna happen. I think I'll haul my corn to the ethanol plant, it's the same distance.
I gotta tell ya, nmewn, after all the years of damn hard work, long hours, and shit for pay, I'm feeling pretty fucking unappreciated.