2017 Fall Farm Outlook

Page 22 Oct. 25, 2017 2017 Logan County Fall Farm Outlook Magazine LINCOLN DAILY NEWS who innovate a new significant market for corn might be motivation enough everyone to put on their thinking cap and come up with something worthwhile. Logan County farmers are surviving with today’s prices because they are producing over and above the national averages. By producing 225 – 260 bushels per acre, the extra bushels per acre are helping to pay the bills, while production in other areas of the country and the world where corn production is coming in around 120 bushels per acre is below subsistence levels. And yet every year farmers plant more corn. Big Ag needs to step up to the plate, spend some Big Ag money, and come up with new uses and new markets for corn. But rather than developing new corn products and increasing the market for corn, Big Ag has announced this fall that they are concentrating on developing new corn genetics to produce short-season corn. Their aim will be to increase the worldwide acreage that can be planted in corn, thereby increasing their profits. Currently much of Western Canada grows canola seed for the production of canola oil and wheat for bread flour, etc. Big Ag wants them to be able to stop being enslaved to crops of canola and wheat, and be able to choose to grow corn instead. Europe grows more canola seed than Canada, and new short season corn varieties will open up much of Europe to grow corn instead of canola. GMO seed producers say that short season corn varieties will at best be capable of producing 120 bushels per acre, which at current corn prices won’t pay the bills for the producer. So, rather than helping solve the great-corn- glut problem, Big Ag is planning on making the problem worse. The result for Big Ag will be more protected sales of GMO corn seed, reaping a premium price per acre for seed. The result for the world: more corn for sale on an already bloated market.