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Harvesting in a trade war: U.S. crops rot as storage costs soar

TU Curmudgeon

B.A. (Sarc), LLb. (Lex Sarcasus), PhD (Sarc.)
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Lower Mainland of BC
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From Reuters


Harvesting in a trade war: U.S. crops rot as storage costs soar

(Reuters) - U.S. farmers finishing their harvests are facing a big problem - where to put the mountain of grain they cannot sell to Chinese buyers.

For Louisiana farmer Richard Fontenot and his neighbors, the solution was a costly one: Let the crops rot.

Fontenot plowed under 1,000 of his 1,700 soybean acres this fall, chopping plants into the dirt instead of harvesting more than $300,000 worth of beans.

His beans were damaged by bad weather, made worse by a wet harvest. Normally, he could sell them anyway to a local elevator - giant silos usually run by international grains merchants that store grain.

But this year they aren’t buying as much damaged grain. The elevators are already chock full.

COMMENT:-

People tell me that the "Law of Supply and Demand" means that "When there's lots, prices go down. When there is little, prices go up.".

Have you noticed any drop in your food prices recently?

I suspect that the real wording of the "Law of Supply and Demand" is "When there's lots, then we'll dump stuff in order to keep prices up so that when there is little we can raises prices even higher."

But, then again, I am a cynic.
 
I remember when striking farmers were pouring milk into sewers.

Last year's futures will be delivered in China next year, you just learned how commodity markets function. Your propaganda failed, miserably.

This year's supermarket holiday prices are higher than last year's. You blew it again.

Americans do no not knowingly consume much soybean products.
 
I remember when striking farmers were pouring milk into sewers.

Last year's futures will be delivered in China next year, you just learned how commodity markets function. Your propaganda failed, miserably.

This year's supermarket holiday prices are higher than last year's. You blew it again.

Americans do no not knowingly consume much soybean products.

Soybeans should be used to replace corn as animal feed. Quite a bit better for the soil it is grown in compared to corn (or at least it can especially if inoculants are used
 
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