16 March 26, 2015 2015 Logan County Farm Outlook Magazine Lincoln Daily News.com
What are
impacts
?
A
nyone in a farm affiliated business will tell
you, it is tough to predict the future. This year
on the farm it will be a challenge for some hoping
to yet see a profit from crop production.
Logan County crop production is all about corn
and beans. The county yield for both crops wildly
broke all records this past year, and it follows a
record year for corn in 2013.
Not only have we had bumper crops two years in a
row, but there are more U.S. acres now planted as
corn and soybeans - 8 million more corn acres and
12 million more soybean acres were harvested than
in the 2005/06 market year.
The increase in U.S. corn and soybeans acres
in part is seen from a reduction in Conservation
Reserve Program acres that are now planted; and
more of that increase is seen from parts of the
country that have moved away from traditional
crops - wheat acres in the Northern Plains; rice,
peanuts and cotton of the Southeast and Southern
Plains, and now put in corn and soybeans.
At the elevators the margin is slim, but this year’s
volume is plenty, and that helps make up for the
low prices. Troy Bauer at Hartsburg Elevator said,
“We’re still pretty full even though we’ve been
moving corn all winter.”
Bauer believes that exports have been decent, but
that they could have been better if the Ukraine corn
hadn’t been so darn cheap, “Cheap corn on the
Black Sea Region has made ours uncompetitive.”
Allen Shew at Chestervale Elevator commented
that he thinks the agricultural industry has been
doing things backward when it comes to GMO’s.
He would like to see the seed companies work
with other countries product regulations before the
release of new seed.
Shew ships most of his grain to Archer Daniels
Midland Company in Decatur. ADM has been
an active participant with the U.S. government
working out trade agreements with China and other
countries.
Continued to page 18
