|
 Forecasts suggest that at current prices growers will be able to
cover their variable expenses such as seed and fertilizer. By
planting more and scrimping on everything from labor to crop
chemicals, farmers hope to cover a portion of hefty fixed costs,
including land rents.
Their strategy marks a reversal from the last time that prices for
corn, soybeans and wheat fell for three years running in mid-1980s.
At that time, farmers cut production and prices began rising.
Illinois farmer Dave Kestel said he would be lucky to break even on
the corn he planned to start planting in April on his farm in
Manhattan, an hour's drive southwest from Chicago. He aims to plant
roughly the same area as last year, about 500 acres (202.34
hectares), despite lower prices.
"It's a vicious circle, but you still do it," Kestel said, about
planting corn.
Barring a weather disaster, more corn planted means a bigger harvest
that will add to massive global crop inventories that have kept
prices below break-even levels. The swollen stockpiles also make any
price recovery unlikely even if U.S. output were to decline.
With no rebound in sight, cranking up production might be the best
shot U.S. farmers have at balancing their books in a falling market,
economists say.
Still, many will fall short of covering the outlays they cannot
change, and paying for land and the cost of depreciating machinery
will drag operations into the red, they warn.
Variable expenses often make up roughly half of a corn farmer's
costs, economists say, although those vary from farm to farm and
state to state.
"There still is a fixed cost out there no matter what you do, so the
incentive is to go out there and get the variable cost covered and
eat into the fixed cost," said Gary Schnitkey, a University of
Illinois economist.
In major grain-producing states of the Midwest, losses from growing
corn this year could top $100 per acre, according to forecasts from
economists and academics.
In central Illinois, for example, planting corn will bring in gross
revenues of $777 per acre, according to University of Illinois
estimates. After variable and fixed costs of $858 per acre, farmers
are expected to lose $81 an acre.
THREE-YEAR SLUMP
This year is shaping up to be the first time since records began in
1973 when U.S. farmers have increased corn plantings in the face of
a three-year slide in prices.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecasts farm incomes
will fall 3 percent this year after a 38 percent slump in 2015 and a
27 percent drop in 2014. Big harvests threaten to prolong the pain
well into 2017.
For corn, cash receipts are expected to drop 1.7 percent from last
year to $46.4 billion, according to the USDA.
[to top of second column] |
In the 1980s, farmers cut production after prices dropped and put
land into the government's new Conservation Reserve Program (CRP),
which pays farmers to let fields sit fallow to benefit the
environment, said Dwight Aakre, a farm management specialist for
North Dakota State University's Extension Service, which offers
advice to the public.
The deadline for enrolling in the program for 2016 has long passed.
Instead, farmers are betting on corn because it offers greater
potential than soybeans for blockbuster yields if the weather is
favorable, and for higher prices if the weather is not, economists
say.
The USDA is expected to estimate corn plantings at 90 million acres
(364,217 square kilometers), up 2.2 percent from 2015, and soybean
plantings at 83.1 million, up 0.5 percent, in a report on Thursday,
according to analysts polled by Reuters.
That would put corn plantings about the same as the latest
projection from February, at an area roughly the size of Germany.
The USDA in February estimated soybean plantings would be lower at
82.5 million acres.
Aakre said plantings should shrink to help prices eventually
recover. However, farmers focus on keeping their operations afloat
this year, instead of tightening global supplies.
"The industry needs to contract, but if the farmer contracts he
makes (his) situation worse," he said.
To save money, Kestel, a mountain climber and former flight
attendant, is repairing his planting machine himself, rather than
paying a mechanic $80 an hour to do it. He may not pay for an
airplane to spray his crops with fungicide as he did last year.
"I figure I'm out here cutting a fat hog," he said.
(Reporting by Tom Polansek in Manhattan, Ill., and Karl Plume in
Chicago. Additional reporting by Mark Weinraub in Chicago.; Editing
by Jo Winterbottom and Tomasz Janowski)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
