Letters to the Editor
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Expensive Wheat and the Iowa Caucuses
If the Iowa caucuses didn't play such an important role in the US primaries, is it possible that food price inflation would be lower this year? The big push for ethanol has been good for Iowa farmers who grow corn, which is used to make ethanol in the US. High tariffs keep out Brazilian-produced ethanol, which is sugar based. Corn displaces other agricultural products, at the margin, driving up the price of wheat. Expensive corn has also driven up the cost of meat and dairy products, since corn-based feeds are fed to cattle. While Iowa farmers are prospering, tens of millions of Americans are being hurt by galloping food price inflation. None of the presidential candidates have the courage to discuss this issue, lest they upset the voters in the Iowa caucuses. We need to find a better way to pick our presidents.
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Corn, wheat, weather, subsidies and fuel prices
While Leonard's article dealt with some of the factors in grain production, it neglected others.
Firstly, the mechanization involved in growing wheat in the U.S. has caused substantial rises in crop yields, per acre. This makes farmers dependent on fuel prices, on interest costs for equipment such as combine harvesters, tractors and grain trucks, and the cost of petrochemical fertilizers that make these higher yields possible. All those prices have been rising.
Fifty years ago, a family might be able to make a living by farming grain on a quarter section, 160 acres. Now it takes about twelve times that much cropland.
Winter wheat farming is heavily dependent on the vagaries of weather. Planting in the fall is followed by sprouting in the spring. Drought in either the fall, spring or early summer will hurt crop yield. A late freeze can also do a great deal of damage to grains. Lastly, harvest in early summer is dependant on dry enough weather to allow heavy equipment into the fields.
There has been a drought afflicting the Midwest for a number of years now. Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas have been particularly hard hit. The drought moved to South-central Kansas last year. Winter wheat that has experienced yields of over 50 bushels per acre dropped to 15 bushels last year. The per bushel price rises because of the poor regional harvest, but not enough to accomodate for the decrease in production.
This year, a late hard frost, a subsequent drought and wet June produced a disaster in this part of the grain belt. Rains during harvest postponed working the fields. The wheat began to sprout on the stalks making it useless even for seed for the fall planting. Many farmers were unable to harvest any saleable crop, and plowed it under or burned it where it stood. Only crop insurance has kept them from bankruptcy, though not all were covered.
Add to this the shift to corn in the higher latitudes such as northern Kansas and Nebraska. Growing that crop requires a great deal of water and agribusiness giants such as ADM have been pushing production. But corn is an inefficient source of ethanol. Worse yet, much of the fields in which it is grown are irrigated. So we have a situation where basically post-Pleistocene era (10,000 year old) Ogalalla aquifer water reserves are being drained to take advantage of the ethanol hustle. Acquifers are not sponges. They will collapse, the ground will subside, and recharge is thereby constrained.
Leonard is absolutely correct that this is in no small part a political problem. But the same people who are dictating farm policy are the ones that brought us the Iraq war. Their policy is being propelled by ideology, deal making and campaign contributions.
Don't expect this to make any sense. You can depend on your grandchildren picking up the bill for this malfeasance, though, as Bush is putting it all on the national credit card.