Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
JOdom wrote: TheAntiGates wrote: Murphy Siding wrote: So I don't think we're messing too much with the food supply at this point. It is interesting the way America's addiction to oil is on a collision course with the farm price/subsidy structure in our economy.Well, I'll bet the cattle farmers waste no time passing this added cost along to the consumer.SO, I suspect there may be some relationship, very soon.There's no way for cattle farmers to pass along the added cost (more on that in a minute). When you sell cows you take what the buyers offer, unless you have some kind of deal with a restaurant or butcher to sell direct to them, and I imagine those deals are keyed to cattle futures prices. Another alternative is to be an integrated producer who sells to grocery stores or direct to the public, but those are very, very rare (at least to my knowledge). Farmers just don't have enough control of the market to pass along increased prices; their only option when a crop becomes unprofitable is to quit that crop and produce something else. Trust me, if corn prices get high enough this country will be awash in corn the next harvest season. There is enough farmland that is unused or used to grow something else that isn't very profitable, that if corn suddenly becomes profitable a lot more of it will be planted. Where I grew up people are planting good farmland to pine trees because the trees don't require the inputs (labor, equipment, fuel, etc.) that crops do - it's just a way to lose less every year.
TheAntiGates wrote: Murphy Siding wrote: So I don't think we're messing too much with the food supply at this point. It is interesting the way America's addiction to oil is on a collision course with the farm price/subsidy structure in our economy.Well, I'll bet the cattle farmers waste no time passing this added cost along to the consumer.SO, I suspect there may be some relationship, very soon.
Murphy Siding wrote: So I don't think we're messing too much with the food supply at this point. It is interesting the way America's addiction to oil is on a collision course with the farm price/subsidy structure in our economy.
So I don't think we're messing too much with the food supply at this point. It is interesting the way America's addiction to oil is on a collision course with the farm price/subsidy structure in our economy.
There's no way for cattle farmers to pass along the added cost (more on that in a minute). When you sell cows you take what the buyers offer, unless you have some kind of deal with a restaurant or butcher to sell direct to them, and I imagine those deals are keyed to cattle futures prices. Another alternative is to be an integrated producer who sells to grocery stores or direct to the public, but those are very, very rare (at least to my knowledge). Farmers just don't have enough control of the market to pass along increased prices; their only option when a crop becomes unprofitable is to quit that crop and produce something else.
Trust me, if corn prices get high enough this country will be awash in corn the next harvest season. There is enough farmland that is unused or used to grow something else that isn't very profitable, that if corn suddenly becomes profitable a lot more of it will be planted. Where I grew up people are planting good farmland to pine trees because the trees don't require the inputs (labor, equipment, fuel, etc.) that crops do - it's just a way to lose less every year.
Interesting article on ethanol and corn prices by a reporter for the Janesville (WI) Gazette with information from the AP:
http://www.gazetteextra.com/ethanol120206.asp
The reporter quotes Chris Hurt, Purdue University agricultural economist who suggests that US 2007 corn planting could increase by 10 million acres to a total of 89 million acres. Will that be enough to supply the forecasted increased demand for corn? See my second signature quote and stay tuned.
Jay
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo Possum "We have met the anemone... and he is Russ." Bucky Katt "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." Niels Bohr, Nobel laureate in physics
jeaton wrote: I was speaking of "feed surcharges" as the funny bit.
I was speaking of "feed surcharges" as the funny bit.
(I am overweight, so before anyone here trys to construe the following as a cheap attempt to laugh at the misfortunate, I'm as much on the "inside" of this one as anybody)
The humor I see is the conflict. We have a society that by and large enjoys eating itself obese , food often seen as fun, and the more the merrier, as well as a society that seems addicted to driving. People will jump in their cars and drive if their destination is further than the end of the street, and so often that trip includes a stop at Taco bell enroute.
So, I see a certain amount of poetic justice in having the panging for travel jacking up the cost of eats.
Choices choices, etc? where to sink that last fiver, etc.
I wouldn't be able to get away with it if I was working, but since I'm not I've started walking a lot of errands instead of driving them, anything within the range of 15-20 blocks round trip, I'll walk it.
My friends all think I'm crazy, ask if the car must be broken down, etc. I guess that's just because they can't envision any set of circumstances where they would walk more than a block.
Gas prices weren't even the motivator when I started the affection for walking, (gas was only around $2/gallon when I started)...rather a pledge to start trying to enjoy the journey as well as the destination, was.
So when gas later started hitting $3/gallon, I was already to the point I was only buying a tank of gas every other month, and could take it in stride.
The psyche we have sold ourselves on, that we need a car to rush us everywhere, is unhealthy thinking, in my book.
TheAntiGates wrote:I wouldn't be able to get away with it if I was working, but since I'm not I've started walking a lot of errands instead of driving them, anything within the range of 15-20 blocks round trip, I'll walk it.
All right, AG! I am an avid walker myself, using only public transportation to supplement my own two feet.
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