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Author Topic: Corn Prices, Farmers, and Global Conspiracies - Obama destroys farmers?  (Read 4229 times)
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WhiskeyGirl
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« on: December 30, 2009, 03:38:33 AM »

Sometimes, my head just wants to explode when I hear about some things on the news.  The stories are often slanted and when you sit back and think, the differing opinions just don't make sense.

Corn, is one of those things.

I was listening the other day to the radio, and they were 'reporting' on an American corn farmer that changed the kind of corn he planted.  In one year, he went from planting corn for human consumption, to corn for methanol production.

A big methanol plant was located near his farm.  The plant, could be seen from the fields he plowed on a daily basis.  The methanol plant paid the farmer double what the farmer would received if he GREW and SOLD corn for human consumption.

Farmers still have to pay for oil based fertilizers and diesel to grow their crops.  As the price of oil rises, the price of corn production rises, and food corn has not been highly profitable for years – too much global competition.

The farmer, at age 65 was finally making money.  The corn, didn't need to be shipped long distances via truck or train to the Mississippi and barged somewhere else, possibly for export.


Sounds like a no brainer?  Not to the reporter.

The 'reporter' or perhaps story writer, blamed this farmer (among and increasing number of American farmers), for increasing the price of corn for global human consumers.  He blamed this farmer for the millions that faced food insecurity.

The reporter blamed American farmers for rising prices for corn oil and tortillas in Mexico.  Mexican’s can’t afford to corn oil and tortillas.  American farmers are to blame for global starvation too.

On the other stalk, I’ve heard increasing reports that American farmers couldn’t make ends meet, and had a harder time find profit in the job and land that their families have passed down for generations. 

Why can’t an American farmer make money?  Why do some think it’s a bad thing for an American to have a J-O-B?

The kind of corn grown for food is different from the kind of corn grown for the production of methanol.

The Mexican Farmer

Other news reports I’ve read and heard, along with blog entries, have indicated that Mexican farmers can’t make money.  Mexican farmers can’t compete with CHEAP American corn.  They blame American farmers and their large scale farms, equipment, and productive land.  Apparently, American farmers are putting Mexican farmers out of business.  Mexican farmers can’t make a profit or feed their families.

As American farmers leave the food production fold, shouldn’t that help Mexican farmers?  Make it easier for Mexican farmers to make a living? 

Why isn’t the Mexican farmer being blamed for global starvation?  The global rise in food grains?  Why isn’t Mexican corn feeding the world?

(Seems that the Mexican farmer should be in a great position to make money.) 

Why isn’t Mexican corn farmer feeding the world?  Politics?  Greed? 

The ‘free’ American market seems to be leading the way to an American solution for energy security. 

Why does the Obama administration insist American energy independence involves only buying solar panels from China and caulking homes?

Why can’t Americans take advantage of the things this nation has in abundance?  Oil?  Corn/methanol?

Shouldn’t Americans have food security?  Manufacturing security? 

Why fixate on just energy independence?

American corn farmers are finding FREE MARKET solutions to energy security and providing for their families.

Why isn’t the MEXICAN farmer on the FREE MARKET gravy train?

Something just isn’t adding up here.

jmho
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WhiskeyGirl
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« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2009, 03:56:42 AM »

I’ve read for some time, Mexico has price controls on tortillas.  It’s the Mexican form of welfare. 

Why doesn’t the Mexican government pay farmers a living wage for their products?   Mexico has lots of oil, I believe they even export some.  Why aren’t Mexican farmers making money?  Why aren’t they exporting their corn elsewhere?

Quote
Net U.S. corn export sales in the week ended Dec. 10 were a high for the marketing year at 1,227,100 tonnes, with Mexico, Japan, Egypt and South Korea the top buyers.
Mexico, the second biggest market for U.S. corn behind Japan, bought 291,800 tonnes in its largest weekly purchase in three weeks.
U.S. corn export sales have struggled amid competition from abundant world feed grain supplies, namely feed wheat, which has slashed demand from key markets such as South Korea, typically the No. 3 market for U.S. corn.

Quote
U.S. corn could remain a tough sell on the world market if the inflow of commodity index fund money at the start of the year propels futures prices on the Chicago Board of Trade higher.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/reuters/2009/12/17/2009-12-17T191928Z_01_N17156278_RTRIDST_0_USA-EXPORTS-GRAIN.html

It seems like American farmers are finding free market solutions to their problem of low corn prices.  America seems to produce a glut of corn.

Why do Mexican farmers want to export their corn?  Why aren’t they selling it for a profit to their own government?

Why plant trees when America’s crop land can lead the way to energy independence? 

An AMERICAN solution to an AMERICAN need?
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WhiskeyGirl
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« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2009, 04:02:27 AM »

Quote
300-Bushel Corn is Coming

If a seed industry representative's forecasts come to fruition, corn used for ethanol production will stay ahead of demand. Average corn yields have doubled in the past 30 years, and new biotechnology traits and research techniques may lead to similar advancements in the next 25 years.

Quote
Monsanto has boldly declared the average corn yield in the United States will reach 300 bushels an acre—double the current national average. Although challenging, it's not beyond the realm of possibilities, says Troy Hobbs, Monsanto's corn biofuels strategy leader, who points out that the national average yield in 1970 was 70 bushels per acre. In 2006, the national yield averaged 149 bushels per acre. Projecting that trend to 2030 would indicate 200-bushels-per-acre average yields. Monsanto predicts that advances in molecular breeding will push that to 250 bushels per acre. Additional biotechnology gains will boost the average to 300 bushels per acre by 2030. Hobbs compares the corn breeding industry to the computer industry in the 1960s and 1970s when inventions led to major advancements in the following decades.

http://www.ethanolproducer.com/article.jsp?article_id=3330

Seems to me Mexico sells a lot of oil, and they could pay farmers better for their crops.

Is Mexico worried about energy independence?  Food security?

If there was no market for 300 bushel corn, why is Monsanto going there?

Why does Obama want to impact America's food security?  It seems like raw food production is an area in which Americans can compete.

Why aren't the Chinese selling their tainted food on the global market place?  I seem to recall that the tainted food kills Americans and not a lot of others.

jmho
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WhiskeyGirl
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« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2009, 04:13:36 AM »

Quote
Monsanto, Big Ag has ‘troubling’ control over seed market, report finds

Ten companies account for two-thirds of the world's proprietary seed for major crops
By Lynda Waddington 12/29/09 6:00 AM

Few Iowans are aware of the price increases plaguing farmers, or the federal policies and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have resulted in a handful of large corporations controlling the seed markets. But a new report, issued three months ahead of scheduled discussions in Ankeny on anti-competitiveness within the seed industry, highlights what Iowa farmers have known for some time.

The Farmer to Farmer Campaign on Genetic Engineering, a network of 34 farm organizations throughout the U.S., issued the report in advance of an unprecedented series of antitrust workshops co-sponsored by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Agriculture. The five workshops, which will begin in Ankeny in March and span four other states over the next year, are an opportunity for producers to speak directly to federal officials about antitrust concerns. The Iowa-based discussion will specifically focus on seeds and the few corporate giants that control that market.

Quote
“Genetically engineered traits have spurred a rapid increase in seed prices, largely because firms have implemented a novel pricing structure through ‘technology fees’ charged on top of basic seed costs,” the report said, adding: “Prices farmers pay for seed have increased 146 percent since 1999, and 64 percent of that increase occurred in just the last three years. Prices of hybrid corn seed were more than 30 percent higher, and soybean seed about 25 percent higher, over 2008 prices.”

(as a side note, the healthcare/reform bills I’ve read separate the insurance company form the broker selling the insurance.  There was a discussion of charging ‘fees’ to pay for the merchants offering the exchange products to consumers – another layer of profit forced from the pockets of honest hard working Americans.  Is it a racket?  An added fee scam?)

Quote
Despite the expiration of the Roundup patent in 2000, which resulted in an initial cost reduction, farmers are now experiencing ever-inflating prices of the herbicide. Seed and chemical dealers told farmers, according to the report, that the increases — often double or triple the cost of just two years ago — are a result of demand, waning genetic production in China and a shortage of phosphorous, a key ingredient. When supply waned, Monsanto reacted by increasing the cost of its product, Roundup, by 30 percent in an effort to “ration supply.”

Why can’t American farmers make money on methanol production?

http://iowaindependent.com/24537/monsanto-big-ag-has-troubling-control-over-seed-market-report-finds

Do large agricultural businesses run our government too?  Agriculture policy?

Can't have American farmers complain - emerging markets in China...

Somehow, I don't see Obama going to bat for farmers.  He's all for FOOD insecurity and imports.  Plant trees...on the other hand end subsidies to wealthy farmers....end subsidies to wealthy farm corporations....

Something just doesn't add up here...

Nothing for corn fields, everything for big business and foreign global agribusiness...
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WhiskeyGirl
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« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2009, 04:17:14 AM »

If Obama wants to eliminate American farms, farmers, and agriculture...

What does he plan to do with all the low paid agriculture workers?

Put them on welfare?  Deport the ones here illegally?

Some farmers complain that they can't find legal agriculture workers in their communities...

If there are no agriculure jobs for farm workers, what does Obama plan to do with them?
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WhiskeyGirl
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« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2009, 04:23:06 AM »

Democrats sell out farmers…

Quote
Missouri farmers are pushing back against a State Tax Commission plan to significantly raise the taxable value of the most productive ground while lowering tax bills for less valuable pasture land.

The three-member tax commission of two Democrats and one Republican recently approved a 29 percent hike in the taxable value of more productive land -- primarily used to produce row crops -- effective in 2011.

How much will taxes like this increase the price of food for Americans?  How much will it squeeze the American farmers profit?
Quote
In 1982, Missouri voters approved a change in law that charged the State Tax Commission with reassessing farmland every odd year based on its productive value, rather than market value, Holloway said.
Missouri Department of Agriculture Director Jon Hagler has come out against the valuation hike.
"Increases in land assessments would be detrimental to farm families and Missouri's overall economy," Hagler said in a recent statement.

http://www.news-leader.com/article/2009912280357

Ahh…another hidden tax, affecting your wallet.


Joe "No one knew the price of food would go up..."
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« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2009, 04:31:02 AM »

Quote
The ethanol trade groups, Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association, along with state and local farm groups, have filed a federal lawsuit challenging Calfornia's low carbon fuel standard. The groups' lawsuit alleges that the new rule, which will be phased in starting in 2011, unfairly discriminates against corn-based ethanol made primarily in the Midwest, in violation of the Commerce and Supremacy clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

Quote
The complaint, filed in federal district court in Fresno, California on December 24, says the fuel standard "is unconstitutional because (i) it conflicts with and is preempted by federal law, including the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007; (ii) it interferes with the regulation of interstate commerce; and (iii) it discriminates against out-of-state corn ethanol producers and importers and improperly regulates their extraterritorial conduct."

Quote
The goal of the new low carbon fuel standard is to encourage fuel blenders to use fuels that put out lower levels of greenhouse gases in production, transportation and when burned in vehicles. Before the Air Resources Board approved the fuel standard last April, its estimates of how green a fuel is included the concept of indirect land use. It assumed that as more corn is used to make ethanol in the U.S. that rainforests and tropical savannahs will be destroyed in other countries in order to grow more crops.

Hmmm…300 bushel corn…why would anyone have to destroy rainforests and tropical savannahs?

Flawed logic?  Ignorance?  Stupidity?

Quote
The fuel standard also assumes that ethanol made from sugar cane in Brazil is greener. The effect of the new fuel standard, the lawsuit says, "will be to required regulated entities producing gasoline for sale in California quickly to try to obtain ethanol produced in Brazil, not the United States."

Sugar cane from Brazil.  Doesn’t Brazil have a lot of rainforests?  Where exactly do they grow that sugar cane?

http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/1262117785895.xml

Somethin just doesn’t add up here.

No jobs for Americans…

No agriculture for Americans…

Put Americans out of business…

Destroy hard working American families…

Why?

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WhiskeyGirl
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« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2009, 04:38:03 AM »

Why isn’t anyone in the media blaming despots, dictators, and warlords for the starvation of millions?

Why do they continue to blame productive farmers and global warming conspiracies?

Over the years, I’ve read about food wasted due to inadequate storage (rats and vermin eat everything), warlords, and greed.

Why punish Americans?

What is Obama doing about the corruption in other nations that prevents people from getting enough to eat?  Corruption that prevents global populations from achieving a good standard of living?  Literacy among women?

Obama just blames Americans…

Something just doesn’t make sense…
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« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2009, 04:57:47 AM »

Tectonic Land Shifts Likely

Quote
“We’re really in unchartered territory here,” Duffy says. “What we have now is over half of the land owned by people over 65…55%, and an interesting thing is one in 10 acres in Iowa is owned by a single woman over the age of 75it’s interesting in terms of ownership changing hands and for young farmers, how are you going to acquire that asset.”
 
Conversely, less than three percent of the state’s farm ground is owned by people 35 years and younger, compared to 11% in 1982 and seven percent in 1992.

“I think a lot of farmers are missing the boat by not stopping by and having a cup of coffee with a land owner from time to time.”

Hmmm…let me think…

Raise taxes so the older farmers are forced out of business?

http://www.agweb.com/get_article.aspx?pageid=148385

Idle the land through ‘green’ or ‘carbon’ regulation?

Wait until the land is no longer profitable for current owners?

Then, in a miracle, decide that its America’s job to be the global provider of food?

Who will buy this land?  Obama’s displaced agriculture workers? 

Maybe they will get bargain mortgages and hugh write downs from Freddie and Fannie?

Redistribution by stealth?

Another echo of ‘let’s just give it all away’ ?
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« Reply #9 on: December 30, 2009, 05:09:51 AM »

Quote
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack participated in a COP 15 panel where he reiterated White House support for biotech crops and agrofuels as a “green” solution to climate change. Left out of the Obama administration’s policies is the fastest growing sector of U.S. agriculture: organics. The pattern is bipartisan and all too familiar. The USDA already provides subsidized crop insurance for biotech varieties under its expanded “risk management” program, which is not available to organic growers. Under the last farm bill, subsidies were also extended to new crops for agrofuel production, such as Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready sugar beets. Sustainable agriculture advocates are now worried that such carbon credits could compromise one of the most popular USDA funding programs that is available to organic producers: the Conservation Reserve Program, which actually does reduce greenhouse gas emissions by taking highly erodible land out of cultivation and putting it back into vegetation.

To make matters worse, Vilsack in Copenhagen announced a new Memorandum of Understanding between the USDA and Dairy Management Inc. to promote methane digesters as yet another approach to reducing U.S. emissions. This memo will most likely allow the largest operations to siphon off even more scarce taxpayer dollars. Once again, sustainable grazing operations, which don’t have a manure “problem” worth digesting and account for a third of all dairy farms in a state like Wisconsin, will gain nothing for their environmental stewardship. The USDA’s own COP15 press release noted that just 2 percent of U.S. dairy farmers “are candidates for a profitable digester.”

Farmers can help fix the global climate crisis, but the solution is not found in catering to corporate agribusiness. The answer lies instead with promoting small-scale sustainable organic agriculture, a position best articulated at COP15 by Via Campesina, the largest umbrella organization for peasants, fishing folk, and indigenous people in the world. According to its principle of food sovereignty, farmers have the right to produce for their own communities without “forced trade” or subsidized dumping.

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_aa6b0714-e6d0-5aea-b26b-5a4b4cccd6d2.html

Sounds like two different kinds of business – agriculture for industrial/non food use, and agriculture for food use.

After all of Obama’s words about large corporation farms and inheritance taxes…

Why give subsidies to large corporate agribusiness dairies?  The one’s in line to profit from green house gas windfalls?  Who profits from the sale of these ‘digesters’?

Does Obama want to destory family farms?  Or just reset the family on the farm? 

More corporate welfare?  Who really profits from all these 'green' policies Obama seems to be promoting?

(Sounds like Mad Maxes 'energy'...not pig shit, 'energy' and embargos)
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« Reply #10 on: December 30, 2009, 05:25:20 AM »

Quote
The agreement comes in the wake of the Dairy Power Summit held in October in New York to discuss the potential for dairy-supplied renewable energy. The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, with sponsorship from GE Energy, coordinated the conference in order to identify ways to increase anaerobic digester adoption by dairy farms of all sizes

Attendees set a goal to generate electricity from 40 percent of all manure from New York dairy farms by 2020, which could power 32,000 homes, reports the Innovation Center. The dairy group said the pilot program could be adopted by farms and communities across the nation.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/12/16/u-s-dairy-industry-plans-25-ghg-emissions-cut-by-2020/

I looked on the web and found that GE Energy is a Jeff Immelt company.

GE Energy seems to have a hand in these ‘digester’ issues.

Quote
Roger George, general manager of GE Energy’s gas engine business for North America, said money is a big issue with digesters. Putting in a digester can cost about $1 million or more.

"It is difficult for smaller farms," George said. "To be economically viable, we need to have scale."

Methane digesters help the environment by eliminating manure from running off into water sources and eliminating the carbon that is put out by the waste. The digesters also extract methane gas from manure and use it to generate electricity. The electricity can power the farm and excess can be sold to the power grid for use by everyone.

http://blog.syracuse.com/farms/2009/10/dairy_power_summit_calls_for_a.html

Put the family farm out of business?

GE controls farms and their energy production?

Green / Carbon subsidies a form of corporate welfare?  GE benefits?

Why isn't the technology being produced to ensure that small farms produce energy for local consumption?  Local control of CHEAP energy, to make like better for all the little people on Main Street?

Why does everything need to be controlled by government, the global energy grid? 

Masters of the universe?

GE?
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WhiskeyGirl
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« Reply #11 on: December 30, 2009, 05:47:59 AM »

Who is the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy organization?

Web links go here http://www.usdairy.com/Pages/Home.aspx

A who’s who of large global businesses -

http://www.usdairy.com/sustainability/AboutUs/Pages/Sustainability-Leadership.aspx

At the very bottom of the the list, is the World Wildlife Fund, WWF.  I wonder how many folks who support this organization know they are involved with dairy farming?  Apple and oranges to the image they promote?

Also on the list is Walmart.

For some reason, this organization seems to have originated and evolved along side the Obama presidency.

Today, it works with the USDA to support businesses run by Immelt.

Coincidence?

Corporate welfare for digesters?  Large global businesses?

Why isn’t there a focus on the small family farm?
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It doesn't do any good to hate anyone,
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WhiskeyGirl
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« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2009, 05:54:54 AM »

I wonder if all these organizations report grants as income?  Pay taxes on taxpayer money?  Corporate welfare?  Taxpayer hand outs?
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All my posts are just my humble opinions.  Please take with a grain of salt.  Smile

It doesn't do any good to hate anyone,
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