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Drought, Hurricanes, Energy Costs Damage Harvest Earnings for Wisconsin Farmers

Posted on: Thursday, 22 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

Sep. 23--Parched by drought, harried by hurricane-spawned shipping problems and stung by high energy costs, state farmers say they'll struggle this harvest season to squeeze out a profit.

With grain prices depressed and continued trouble moving grain down the Mississippi River, farmers in some parts of the state are even looking to store grain in make-do buildings or simply pile it on the ground.

"We've had drought and hurricane floods and there's all kinds of factors in play," said Gordy Andrew, 55, a grower in the Evansville area who has a decent harvest but mounting costs. "Our profits are going to be tight less than we're used to."

The effects of the harvest affect everything from the economy of the state, where agriculture is a multi-billion dollar business, to the amount of federal crop subsidies that will have to be borne by taxpayers.

There is some good news for Dane County farmers. In spite of this summer's drought, the county's mainstay soybean and corn crops are expected to have average yields, said David Fischer, Dane County crops and soils agent for UW-Extension.

"Given the circumstances, that is good better than expected," he said.

Statewide, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates soybean yields will rise slightly to 36 bushels an acre this year, with total soybean production rising 4 percent to 56.5 million bushels. Corn yields are projected to stay flat at 136 bushels an acre, with overall production rising nearly 8 percent to 380.8 million bushels because of added acres this year.

Plentiful rains in the western part of the state set up what could be a record harvest and big headaches, said Pierce County agricultural extension agent Greg Andrews. Poor grain prices and shipping problems on the Mississippi because of drought and the devastation of the Port of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina mean farmers will try to hold onto much of that grain, he said.

"We are going to have corn piled on some type of surface, either covered with a tarp...or in a machine shed," said Andrews, who's organizing classes to show farmers how to best store grain under these conditions.

Prices for corn and soybeans were at low levels at Landmark Services Cooperative in Cottage Grove Thursday, with corn at $1.78 a bushel and soybeans $5.43 a bushel. The market's already low prices had been pushed down some 10 cents a bushel because of added shipping costs being passed on to farmers, said Doug Cropp, grain operations manager for Landmark.

Higher costs for natural gas used to dry corn mean that it will cost roughly twice as much to dry an identical bushel of corn this year, though the drought may help offset that, Cropp said. The higher cost of diesel fuel is also hitting farmers at a time when they're out in the field and using big amounts of it, Cropp said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Wisconsin State Journal

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Source: The Wisconsin State Journal

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