Bushels vs. beef
US - Corn prices are at 10-year highs, but not everyone is profiting in farm country.
5 February 2007
1 minute read
Nearly 56 percent of U.S. corn is fed to livestock. And when feed prices go up, profits for local pork and beef producers go down.
"We're awful glad we had three very good years," said Brian Robinson, a Galesburg area pork producer and vice president of the Knox County Pork Producers Association, "but we're afraid we may bleed the next three to five years."
Profits are tighter now than six months ago for livestock producers. Specifically pork producers are predicted to break even or see some losses this year because of much higher feed costs, said Chris Hurt, a Purdue University Extension specialist.
The explosive demand for corn to make ethanol fuel is sending corn prices to above $4 a bushel for the first time in about a decade, generating higher income for farmers strictly in the business of growing grain. Prices of soybeans, also a source of feed and biodiesel fuel, have risen, though less rapidly.
Source: The Register-Mail
