Drought Induced Price Spike Could Cause Even Lower Prices Later
As this column is being written the markets for corn, soybeans and wheat are jittery with prices vacillating up and down as traders try to figure out the impact of weather on the size of 2002 crops in the U.S.
Payment Caps Stir Interest in Farm Bill
Each [farm] bill (the House and the Senate) basically takes the commodity sections of Freedom-to-Farm and attaches a method to automatically dispense "emergency payments." Thus, the commodity-program part of each bill becomes a Super Freedom to Farm. Production will be large and prices will be low, except come high water or a drought.