April 20, 2010
News from Des Moines: Farmer’s ‘can’t ask for a better start’
The story out of the Adams farm in Batavia, Iowa, is being replicated across America as the nation’s farmers take advantage of perfect weather for spring planting. A couple of things worth noting: despite last year’s hard weather, US farmers still produced a record corn crop; farmers are deploying even more technology than ever before for greater efficiency; and the price of corn is running at half of what it was two years ago while farmers are still dealing with high costs for petroleum-based inputs, like fertilizer and fuel. Ethanol provides a crucial market for farmers, who are producing more than enough grain to meet all this nation’s food, fuel and livestock feed needs — as well as for our export market.
From today's Des Moines Register:
Farmers 'can't ask for better start'
By DAN PILLER • dpiller@dmreg.com • April 19, 2010
Batavia, Ia. - Jeff Adam lowered the 24-row planter behind his Deere tractor into the ground and yelled over the 225-horsepower engine, "We've had mechanical problems, but we still have 2,000 acres planted this week."
"At this rate," Adam said as he accelerated the tractor forward, "we'll have all of our corn and beans in by April 25."
That pace would put Adam and the rest of Iowa's 90,000-plus corn farmers well ahead of the timetable of the last two years, when heavy spring rains extended corn and soybean planting into late May.
This year, Iowa's farmers have had two good weeks of warm, dry weather to kick off the planting of what are hoped to be corn and soybean crops worth a total of $15 billion.
An early start for corn in April means an earlier harvest and less vulnerability to early frost or the kind of rain that turned the harvest into a quagmire last fall.
Read the full article at the Des Moines Register.
