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["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On 9/25/07, Don Bowen KI6DIU <don.bowen AT earthlink.net> wrote:

> Meanwhile there are domestic pressures for significant inflation in the
> near future, mostly because we insist in pouring food through our SUV gas
> tanks.
>
> Corn $3.735, Wheat $8.777, Soybeans $9.787.  (9/25 CBOT)  Feeder cattle
> $1.166, Live cattle $1.007, Pork $.875 (CME), gold $732.80, Crude $80.95,
> Euro $1.4113, Can$ $.9978.
>
>From the point of view of the farmer, those prices aren't extravagant.
Compare them to prices of 30 and 50 years ago (there was that nice
bump for soybean farmers about 30 years ago when soybeans got to $12,
but the price of corn hasn't changed much over the decades).

In the meantime, the prices that the farmer pays for equipment,
fertilizer, pesticides, and fuel have gone up much faster, just to
understate the situation.

Americans have had cheap -- if not all that tasty -- food for a long
time. It would be a revelation to cut farm supports and let prices
float. In the short term, I'm sure much land would be consolidated and
we'd import a lot more. More food from China?  Yum.

Marie