Journal entry by Al Negstad — a minute ago
Impersonating a farmer is one of my poses. Owning farm land in South Dakota brings me several benefits. It provides opportunity for me to frequently see my extended family, I stay in touch with people from my youth, it provides an excuse to own tractors, there is opportunity to participate in rural, small town life, it gives me a place to hunt and it keeps me in touch with the issues of agriculture.
I'm worried about farmers. Commodity prices have been low for several years. Many farmers were able to remain solvent because soybean prices provided profit. Then, Trump's trade war caused retaliation by China which imposed a 25% tariff on American soybeans, thus ending the export trade to China. This hit upper-Midwest farmers hard because most of their soybeans were moved by train to the west coast and then shipped to China. The subsequent slump in the price of beans moved them lower than the cost of production. When farmers added to on-farm, bin storage the cost of steel had risen 30% because of administration steel tariffs.
Weather, weather, weather...the most significant factor in grain production has been particularly difficult this spring. For a huge swath of the Midwest it has been too wet for any field work and it doesn't look hopeful for the immediate future. Every week of delay in planting reduces the yield as farmers must plant seeds with shorter maturity dates. One of my S. D. neighbors has 160 stock cows that were calving during the April snow storm. During calving in those conditions he had to check the herd every hour and half, 24/7, to insure the survival of the calves. Another neighbor said he took his daughter to day care in the morning and water was running over the road. When he returned home the road had washed out.
Joanne's farming background was limited to occasional visits to her uncle's farm. A harvest time visit caused a severe hay fever attack and her doctor told her not visit during that time a year. She had a lively interest in farming and liked to test her knowledge of crops we passed while driving, asking "are those beets", etc. She even occasionally enjoyed driving her tractor and she was quite proud of it. Manufactured in 1941, it was just five years younger than she. She always kept count of the numbers of tractors in my garage seeming, if not proud of them, at least bemused.
"Joanne, if you're listening, I only have 4, now."
Blessings,
Al
Joanne pictured on her tractor. 😊
I'm worried about farmers. Commodity prices have been low for several years. Many farmers were able to remain solvent because soybean prices provided profit. Then, Trump's trade war caused retaliation by China which imposed a 25% tariff on American soybeans, thus ending the export trade to China. This hit upper-Midwest farmers hard because most of their soybeans were moved by train to the west coast and then shipped to China. The subsequent slump in the price of beans moved them lower than the cost of production. When farmers added to on-farm, bin storage the cost of steel had risen 30% because of administration steel tariffs.
Weather, weather, weather...the most significant factor in grain production has been particularly difficult this spring. For a huge swath of the Midwest it has been too wet for any field work and it doesn't look hopeful for the immediate future. Every week of delay in planting reduces the yield as farmers must plant seeds with shorter maturity dates. One of my S. D. neighbors has 160 stock cows that were calving during the April snow storm. During calving in those conditions he had to check the herd every hour and half, 24/7, to insure the survival of the calves. Another neighbor said he took his daughter to day care in the morning and water was running over the road. When he returned home the road had washed out.
Joanne's farming background was limited to occasional visits to her uncle's farm. A harvest time visit caused a severe hay fever attack and her doctor told her not visit during that time a year. She had a lively interest in farming and liked to test her knowledge of crops we passed while driving, asking "are those beets", etc. She even occasionally enjoyed driving her tractor and she was quite proud of it. Manufactured in 1941, it was just five years younger than she. She always kept count of the numbers of tractors in my garage seeming, if not proud of them, at least bemused.
"Joanne, if you're listening, I only have 4, now."
Blessings,
Al
Joanne pictured on her tractor. 😊
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