As food prices spiral, farmers, others profit

As food prices spiral, farmers, others profit

www.agweekly.com

While virtually all businesses are contending with higher energy costs, the rising commodities prices are proving to be bottom-line boosters for other sectors, too.

Profits at seed and pesticide maker Monsanto Inc. reached nearly $1 billion last year - a 14-fold increase since 2003. They’ve tripled to $1.1 billion at agrichemical maker Syngenta and agriculture divisions of DuPont Co. and Dow Chemical Co. have also seen their earnings balloon.

(visit the link for the full news article)

The majority of the article is nothing new whatsoever. We've heard numerous times about how corn farmers are experiencing a boom thanks to ethanol production. The really interesting thing is the Monsanto mention. a 14 fold profit increase in 5 years is virtually unheard of. Combined with Monsanto's claim at the UN food summit last week, saying that they had the solution for world hunger, I think it is no undeniable that at least some of the current trends in food reserves depletion, strong arming of small farmers, and government action against "crop & livestock disparragement" have Monsanto's stench all over them.

www.agweekly.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I spoke to my aunt a few weeks back about how things were going for her and my uncle. They farm a few thousand acres around here.

What I heard contradicts the report concerning farmers. She said that while prices to them were rising, the fuel costs, fertilizer costs, and seed costs were rising as well. At the end of the day, they were making enough to keep up with normal inflation (like for food), and no more.

Perhaps there are some farmers in the Plains that are doing better over ethanol, but it's not widespread. Monsanto, on the other hand, is where those seed and fertilizer increases are coming from, so I imagine they are sitting pretty right now. The farmers are locked into buying new seed each year by contract, or they get to grow less productive crops (in some cases, the contract says they can't grow anything for a set number of years).

I also know that the fertilizer costs for the guy who raises hay on our field is getting hit big time for fertilizer this year.

TheRedneck

Please don't confuse Monsanto Corp. with the average hard-working butt-busting farmer. Monsanto has created Roundup and other chemicals and purports to have created seeds whose plants are resistant to their own chemicals. I'll do a search a provide foundation for this if you want.

My sense of the average butt-busting farmer is that they are suffering profoundly from rising fuel costs, escalating fertilizer costs, and then factor in severe weather conditions........ it's not a happy time to be a farmer, and I believe only the most dilligent will be able to stay in business, let alone turn a profit.

It's not for the faint of heart.

The small farmers aren't making a dime, that's how it's always been...and sadly I fear how it always will be.

reply to post by TheRedneck


The rice farmers here say about the same thing as your relatives. Their cost have risen dramatically. They surely are not making big bucks.

I wish that the people that think us farmers are making money hand over fist would come to my house and show me exactly where I am making it. Most farmers around here have cut way back on the amount of fertilizer they are applying this year because of the price. Even back when I was farming about 1,000 acres, the money I had left at the end of the year after the bills was paid(if there was any left), I was still at they poverty level.

One large farmer that I know told me last year that he averaged about 1,200lb/acre on his cotton and 3,800lb/acre on his peanuts. After he paid his bills, he had just a little over $10,000 to live on.

WE ARE NOT MAKING A LOT OF MONEY!!!