[OP]
Guest
All this talk about twinkies makes me want to eat some half cooked meat. BUT when we go to the store it always seems like too much dinero. I checked it, and it looks like beef is way up in the last 4 years, close to double. Anybody know why?
http://www.indexmundi.com/commoditie...eef&months=120
beef.jpg
Contributor
It's all the imported cattle that don't eat Twinkies.
"Dear God, my prayer for 2018 is a fat bank account and a thin body. Please don't mix these up like you did the last four years."
Contributor
I don't follow the price of corn, but I've heard that corn prices have been up quite a bit because of the amount of corn diverted to ethanol production. I don't remember when ethanol production really took off so I don't know if the price rise in beef coincides with ethanol production.
With the drought that occurred this year in the corn belt, there's talk of reducing or eliminating the mandate for ethanol in gasoline.
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
Member
Also consider the cost of fuel. Higher fuel costs mean higher feed costs (higher costs to plant, harvest and ship), higher cost to haul the beef to the processing plant and higher cost to ship the meat to markets.
"If it is wood, I will turn it."
vor-tex: any activity, situation, or way of life regarded as irresistibly engulfing.
Member
The drought in the much of the feed grain producing areas of the country will influence food prices for quite some time. With higher prices and lower supply of feed grains, many farmers have reduced the size of the herds. This translates to lower supply and higher prices in the grocery for consumers. I fear this is just the start of a lengthy trend in food prices.
________
Ron
"Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."
Vince Lombardi
[OP]
Guest
Am I wrong, or has the grocery store price for beef doubled in the stores? It seems like costco used to have some pretty nice steaks, and roasts for not a lot of money. It seems like just a few years ago you could get whole tenderloins for about 4-5 dollars a pound. Last time I was in there looking, that would be the price for "stew meat".
Contributor
Your right, the price has doubled. I thought about buying half a cow from my wife's co-worker. I estimated the cost to $2.50 to $2.75 a pound, cut and wrapped. The down side would be if I lost power for a long time.
"Dear God, my prayer for 2018 is a fat bank account and a thin body. Please don't mix these up like you did the last four years."
Contributor
high cost of beef= drought, ethanol production, energy overhead costs, ethanol production, higher standard of living in other countries, ethanol production....
Member
Not only beef-- have you priced peanut butter--- it's more than doubled. I figure it's just like gas prices--- another way for wall street to stick it to the consumer and line thier pockets at the same time.
---I may be broke---but we have plenty of wood---
Contributor
I don't buy much raw meat, but I thought the pundits said meat prices were likely to fall short term and then skyrocket later this winter? The reason for prices to fall short term is because farmers can't afford to feed them so a large number of animals would be butchered short term. The rise later is after the supply of animals drops way off.
Guest
Two things contribute to the corn price:Originally Posted by Mike Henderson
1) the weakening dollar (making commodities a good place to park money and speculate)
2) the demand for corn due to biofuels mandates (6% of corn went to be used for ethanol in 2000, but more than 40% is used currently)
Maybe 10 years ago, corn was around $1.50-$2 per bushel. Fertilizer costs were lower (so was the input prices for fertilizer, though NG has come down tons due to fracking), seed costs were lower, etc. Last I checked, it was around $7-$8 a bushel.
We (my family) are still landowners of a farm, but rent it to more capable people, so I guess we benefit from it in rent price, but I'd pitch the whole ethanol thing right out the window given the chance, even though we'd be back to getting rent that just about exactly pays the taxes on the land.
The weak currency and mandate have also made it easy for seed prices to climb to $200-$300+ (depending on seed and what's done to it).
At any rate, I haven't met any dairy farmers or beef producers who are getting rich. it's better to be growing corn and beans right now (or making agricultural equipment), but as soon as prices stay up for a while, the inputs and land rents to grow in price to fill the gap. That pushes up other crops, too, because soybean planting will drop until their price also supports the input costs and competes with corn.
Guest
Peanuts and everything else have to compete against corn, too, as well as compete for their inputs (fertilizer, herbicides). If it is all of the sudden more profitable to plant corn, peanuts don't get planted. In anticipation of the acreage adjustment, peanut prices probably increased initially, but they are high now likely due to their competition with corn for fuel and with the input costs to grow corn infringing on peanuts.
Everyone who grew anything has to think long and hard now about whether or not they don't want to just go to corn, maybe with the exception of folks who can grown nuts and other long-term high profit-per acre crops.
Nothing to do with wall street, but lots to do with mandates and weak currency together.
Contributor
Commodity prices do not necessarily reflect the input costs. Farmers are sending extra livestock to the slaughterhouse because it costs more to take care of them than they can sell them for.
I have been buying the same bacon since January. It started at $10.49, jumped to $10.99, and by September or early October it had dropped to $9.49. The price has jumped to $11.99 in the past month.
If everybody jumps to corn next year and there is adequate rainfall the price of corn should drop.
Contributor
.....and then you have to factor in the fact that you are shooting craps with "Mother Nature". Though most of our family members who farm in the mid-west had crops that faired slightly better than they expected, the drought still made a huge dent in a lot of farmers crop production. There in lies one of the major annual unknown risks to farming and crop prices.
Ken
So much to learn, so little time.....
Guest
Short term association with inputs and long-term association with inputs are not the same. If there is a glut of cattle because farmers can't afford corn/hay (hay price flies up in a drought, too), and inputs are high, the meat drops in the short term, but in the long term, it will rise at least to where it would have been, reflective of inputs.
Aside with some forced fluctuation of inputs due to energy costs (at one point, NG was expensive, it no longer is), inputs generally have been priced similar to the way the mechanic charged the griswolds in national lampoon's vacation. (when clark asks how much the repair is, the mechanic says "how much you got?").
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