I found this article in the Financial Times interesting.  It discusses expected feed price increases due to low inventories. 

The USDA “warned of persistently low inventories, with wheat stocks at the lowest since 1947, and a massive 20 per cent reduction in corn stores.”

This is bad news for ranchers, but should be good news for crop farmers.

Link to Article (requires membership): http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/32414480-c079-11dc-b0b7-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Miscanthus is a tall perennial grass that has been evaluated in Europe during the past 5-10 years as a new bioenergy crop.  It is similar to switchgrass.  I have heard that the University of Illinois has recently been doing research to see if this is a viable crop for US farmers and the results look favorable.  The plant not only grows well in the Midwest, it crowds out the weeds and needs little fertilization.  Miscanthus can be harvested every year with a sugar cane harvester and can be grown in relatively cool climates. Like other bioenergy crops, the harvested stems of miscanthus may be used as fuel for production of heat and electric power, or for conversion to other useful products such as ethanol. 

I am enthusiastic about crop research that could lead to different feed stocks for energy and ethanol, but I question research being done on plants that would/could grow in areas that are already heavily farmed.  This could only lead to changing one crop for another which as we see today leads to supply imbalances.  I know this is a tall request, but shouldn’t we be looking for or engineering a species that grows in what is currently waste land?

The demand for organic food is skyrocketing in the United States – and that may spell huge opportunities for farmers looking for new niche markets. Between health concerns, the perception that organic produce just tastes better, and the recent spate of contamination problems in the food industry, the organic food market experienced monster growth in 2006 – more than 21 percent, according to Food Navigator USA. (By comparison, the total food market grew just 2 to 4 percent last year – organic is outpacing conventional by at least five to one!) It’s even sweeter for the ranching side of the house – how does a 55% growth rate last year hit you?

That level of demand growth can’t last forever, but analysts are probably right in projecting strong growth for the foreseeable future. To make the market even more attractive, food distributors are having a hard time recruiting reliable organic food sources. A lot of the folks who get into organic farming aren’t farmers by trade or training – they’re people who are interested in organic production for reasons of their politics or their own dietary preferences. Nothing wrong with that, but knowing all about the health benefits of sprouts doesn’t do you any good when you’re trying to keep tractors running. Farmers with existing operations and a willingness to put in the research and the work may find that organic farming pays huge dividends, and that finding buyers for your organic produce is the easiest part of the job. (Well, that, and cashing the checks.)

But beware – there are hazards to organic farming that it takes experience to master. Unless you’ve got seasoned organic farmers already in your area, it’s not like you can just ask the guys at the feed store how to handle a pest problem or when to plant. They don’t know either – it’ll be trial and error for you. One farmer feeling his way into the organic business in upstate New York learned that the hard way in this report. Accustomed to being able to plant at his convenience without thinking too much about bug lifecycles – hey, you just spray the field and the larvae die anyway - he planted at the same time a seed-eating species was peaking. He found out too late that if he’d waited three weeks, that whole hatch would have moved on – as it was, he got to buy seed twice that year. That’s not fun for any farmer, but in his case it really rankled – organic seeds cost twice as much as the conventional varieties.

There is help out there, though. Organic grower’s associations, and even the buyers themselves, make a lot of resources available for farmers thinking about making the switch. The annual Organic Trade Show is a good place to get a lot of ideas for what you’d need to do to put your operation on an organic footing.

Its Thanksgiving time and that got me thinking.  What is going on with US cranberries?  So I did a little research.   

In August, the USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service forecast that the nation’s 2007 cranberry crop would be 6.9 million barrels, just 1,000 more than last year, but up 11 percent from 2005.  Michael Rucier, export promotional manager for the Cranberry Market Board told an AP writer that “The bottom fell out of the market” in 1999, and prices plummeted, “We had a lot of inventory and no place to sell it.” As a result, the CMB intensified its international marketing efforts with great success.  In 1999 US cranberry growers were exporting 14% of their crop; by 2006, 27% of their crop was going over seas.   

Most cranberries are used for juice, sauce, and sweetened-dried cranberries, with the remainder sold fresh to consumers.  Baking is another traditional use for the berry.  They are grown in Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin, as well as in Canada.

 The health benefits of cranberries are also catching on. Cranberries contain anti-oxidants, help fight urinary tract infections, and they bear seeds that reportedly contain beneficial fatty acids.  (I even found cranberry pills on the market) 

Let’s order up another vodka-cranberry, scoop some extra sauce on our Thanksgiving plates, and hope this trend continues!