Word: corns
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...appears, too good for their own good. Three straight years of bumper crops have created enormous surpluses and pushed prices for the major crops lower than they have been in at least a decade, often below the cost of production. The year's expected harvests of corn (8.3 billion bu.), wheat (2.8 billion bu.) and soybeans (2.3 billion bu.) will be the largest in history, and yet U.S. farm income will be the smallest in real dollars since Depression-ravaged...
Other farmers face much more risk, but they too can avoid flat-out failure by falling into Government safety nets. Steffen, for instance, took out a $19,500 federal loan last spring, using his corn crop as collateral. Back then the collateral was appraised by Washington at $3.15 per bu.; today Steffen's local grain elevator is paying just $1.99 for corn. Steffen may default on the loan, effectively selling his corn to the U.S. Government for a dollar more than anyone else would pay for it. Tens of thousands of farmers are expected to do the same this...
...Jill Supermarket in 1979, has watched sales droop 15%. Says Vernon Waterman of the farm-implement business he runs with his wife Margaret: "I'm surviving on service, but losing money every day. I'm barely in business, and it won't get any better until corn and soybean prices get better...
...improve, I might have to tell five or ten that they ought to get out." This year, Northrup pressured his borrowers to sign up for the Government's unpaid land "set-aside" program. To reduce production and raise prices, 10% of each farmer's corn acreage was to be retired during 1982. Only a quarter of U.S. farmers participated; the effect on the crop was negligible...
...back and my neighbor cuts back," says Chappel Sides of Mississippi, "that won't do it. The Government has to come in and regulate supplies" by forcing farmers to produce less. Last week, by congressional mandate, Agriculture Secretary Block announced a new, paid set-aside program. If corn and wheat farmers retire 20% of their lands next year, the Government will pay them as much as $100 per unplanted acre...