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Gasprices

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#81
Floyd said:
meh....
the only thing I really agree with in that post is your first sentence. Particularly for the US consumer. The US consumer spends less of his disposable income on food than any other nation in the world. Food (here in the US) is cheaper in that sense than it has ever been (even at current grain prices).

I make a decent living farming and draw no subsidies. And take a look at Australian (and I think New Zealand) farmers. Their countries do not subsidize farmers. The arguement could be made that I reap the benefits of farm programs even though I don't participate, but I can't control that. Without loan programs (price support), I do just fine. ...
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meh,
we must live in different worlds then, in europe you simply don't make money without subsidies. our costs are just to high.
and when the price of wheat doubles like it has, you would expect us to actually make good money. but then our governemts see the gain, and last year they have increased our taxes by 400%.
one acre in my country costs about $15.000, we have to pay for the labels and quality controls on our own products. while they import large quantities of food from countries like brasil, where controlls consist of placing blue stamps on the container, and where a worker costs 1 dollar a day

i would love to be able like you, and farm without subsidies. but then give me your costs also.
 
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#83
SchutzeSepp said:
meh,
we must live in different worlds then, in europe you simply don't make money without subsidies. our costs are just to high.
and when the price of wheat doubles like it has, you would expect us to actually make good money. but then our governemts see the gain, and last year they have increased our taxes by 400%.
one acre in my country costs about $15.000, we have to pay for the labels and quality controls on our own products. while they import large quantities of food from countries like brasil, where controlls consist of placing blue stamps on the container, and where a worker costs 1 dollar a day

i would love to be able like you, and farm without subsidies. but then give me your costs also.
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Believe me, I am the exception to the rule here. Our farm bill previous to the last one, was supposed to be the last farm bill for US farmers. Congress said so. I got "lean and mean". I trimmed the excess from my operations, did without some luxuries and got ready to actually compete. Leave it to our farm lobbiest (John Deere, Monsanto, crying farmers) yet another bill was passed. I chose not to participate.

I'm leaving money "on the table" so to speak, but I feel I can compete with most anyone. I'm a small farmer by US standards. I only farm about 1500 acres (compared to 5000 - 10,000 acres). From experience, I don't think a person can farm much smaller in the US and support a family. I have to compete with the "big boys" with tractor deals, etc. I don't get the big discounts (up to 25%) from purchasing four or five $150,000 tractors or $250,000 combines or $500,000 cotton pickers at one time. Nor do I get the volume discounts from the fertilizer and chemical companies.

Other than perhaps land prices, I would suspect our input prices are not too different. As both are directly related to oil and natural gas prices, diesel and fertilzer costs may vary more, though. 1 US Gal farm diesel = $3.50. 1 US ton of 30%N = $370/ton (both are up 3x from their price 2 years ago).

I suspect that yields may be a bigger issue. What would be your typical yield/acre? (then we'll have to convert. That'll be a chore :confused:).
In my region of the US (known more for cotton production than anything else):
Wheat 50-90 bushels/ acre here.
Soybeans 40 bu/acre
Corn 150-190 bu/acre.
Cotton 1100 - 1500 #'s/acre.

I read a good article a while back that discussed the differences between the average European farm and the average US farm. It was very interesting. As you know, farm operations vary tremendously from farm to farm, so its hard to compare apples to apples when you cross continents, climates and political boundaries.

There are many ways a nation can subsidize an industry, be it farming or some other industry. So, I'm not going to tell you that I don't benefit directly from US farm policies, programs and subsidies. That would be naive and stupid on my part.

We are off topic here, but I hope some have learned a little more about how the world and the US economy works (as it pertains to agriculture, anyway). Don't believe everything you hear/read. I wonder how many here know what the biggest expense in the US farm bill is? Hint: It has nothing directly to do with commercial agriculture......

Floyd
 
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#84
I'm watching and reading every word/post here.

For my part I work with gold, that is to say it is bought in its brute state and then reworked to be sold in jewelery stores, I'm the one with the burnt stubby fingers, not the person behind an air conditioned counter.
The gold price has follows or leads the oil market. The two indexes go hand in hand.
I can tell you now that the situation is catastrophic.
60% increase in the last 2 years, more or less.

I live in the East of France which as Schutzesepp would know is primarily a heavy farming region (as is the larger part of France).
What percentage of crops are left to waste rather than being recolted(?) I would not dare to estimate.
Where are all the butter mountains and grain mountains that were so often evoked back in the 'last century'.

I have friends in the southern part of France who are fruit farmers, half of the production is just not picked.
I just bought a melon, it cost me 1.80
 
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#85
World economy perspective at individual level is refreshing to read about.
The cross section of forum readers posting gives an actual state of play as opposed to some out of touch "analyst".

Theres nothing easy atm anywhere, global credit crunch and the outrageous profiteering by many multinationals combine to create a very difficuilt day to day existence for many.

I run a small building firm and the escalating fuel price has a major knock on effect on the cost of any house.
Living on the western edge of Europe on an island means a lot of imports, this factor equates into a very simple setup.....eg a sheet of plywood twelve months ago cost fifteen euros, this now costs closer to eighteen euros due to higher fuel cost (they've actually crept in eighty cents thats nowhere near fuel related)

What I currently see is that last years housebuilding price costs are now seven percent below what the cost is this year, and yet everyone expects last years prices to be the norm.

The problem is that in a country that has a rapidly cooling economy many builders are actually trying to stay afloat by working to last years prices.
Personally I'd rather refinance my operations and cut the fat than end up paying for the additional costs out of my own pocket.

Rant over...(for now at least:))
 
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#89
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#91
Thing is: this high price seems to be God-sent.
Right now way more effort is done for cleaner sources of energy.
Here in Holland a large energy company just announced they have solved the logistic problems to supply millions of electric cars with energy.

In 2 years these cars will go into mass production.
Our air will be a lot cleaner :D

Monk.
 
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#94
There is a new wind power plant off the coast, that's true, but the output of windturbines isn't coming near the need of 'millions of electric cars', perhaps one day. As it stands windturbines at sea are still too expensive compared to conventional means of energy production, even landbased windturbines still produce energy at a price more expensive than coal or gas. Ofcourse this will change as fossil fuels grow more scarce, but it will take a while yet.
 
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#95
Monkwarrior said:
Thing is: this high price seems to be God-sent.
Right now way more effort is done for cleaner sources of energy.
Here in Holland a large energy company just announced they have solved the logistic problems to supply millions of electric cars with energy.

In 2 years these cars will go into mass production.
Our air will be a lot cleaner :D

Monk.
Click to expand...

Over here the big thing is E85 (85% ethanol 15% petrol) the consumption of that has really increased. The thing people seem to not think about here is that the inhumane conditions the ethanol is produced at in Brazil (where we get 95% of our fuel ethanol from).
 
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#96
The problem with E85 is that it wastes perfectly good corn. Corn-based Ethanol as an energy source is lower in power-output-per-volume than conventional gasoline...meaning it takes more gasoline to produce the ethanol that what is ultimately consumed.

Only reason it works in Brazil is because of the buttload of Ethanol you can get out of Sugarcane. And China is about the only other place than can produce enough Sugarcane for Ethanol to be a short-term solution.

Right now the magic energy bullet doesn't really exist and meanwhile watch the oil companies roll in the money. D:
 
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#97
PUTZ said:
The problem with E85 is that it wastes perfectly good corn. Corn-based Ethanol as an energy source is lower in power-output-per-volume than conventional gasoline...meaning it takes more gasoline to produce the ethanol that what is ultimately consumed.

Only reason it works in Brazil is because of the buttload of Ethanol you can get out of Sugarcane. And China is about the only other place than can produce enough Sugarcane for Ethanol to be a short-term solution.

Right now the magic energy bullet doesn't really exist and meanwhile watch the oil companies roll in the money. D:
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I don't say that it is the right way to go but it's the way my country is currently going.

In theory the sugercane ethanol is a good thing since it's done out of bagasse which is a waste product from the sugar industry, that would otherwise be thrown away or just burned, so it doesn't waste any useful resource.

But as I said the current situation for the workers in these ethanol plants is inhumane and not a long term solution from a humanistic standpoint.

Oh and btw if I remember the numbers correctly the energy ratio for petrol is something like 6:1 or 5:1 (meaning you get out 6 or 5 times the amount of energy you put in to it when producing it) and for ethanol it's something like 2,5:1 (with normal fermentation type processes) so it's a lie that it takes more energy to produce ethanol then you get out of it. But still the ratio isn't as high as for petrol.
 
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#100
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