Taking a knee on farm policy

If the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) current forecasts are even close to being right and the nation’s politicians continue their year-long blood feud, football players won’t be the only ones on their knees in protest.Indeed, almost every piece of news out of USDA these days arrives wrapped in black crepe. For example:U.S. cotton production is up 23 percent over a year ago and global cotton production is up 10 percent. The bumper crop, USDA estimates, will deflate this year’s 83-cents-per-pound average price to 69 cents next year.Successful Farming’s just-released, annual Pork Powerhouses report carries this foreboding headline, “Expansion spells trouble,” and this gloomy explanation why: “The last time the Pork Powerhouses list grew by this much was in 2006. That growth led to a market collapse and cutbacks in sow numbers by 2008.”On Sept. 29, USDA estimated that 2.3 billion bushels of last year’s corn crop remains in storage even as U.S farmers begin to harvest this year’s forecasted 14.2 billion bushels. That combination will keep corn prices low, around $3.20 per bushel well into next year.Likewise, 301 million bushels of 2016’s soybeans remain, a 53 percent increase in carryover from the year before, and a record 2017 soybean crop, about 4.4 billion bushels, is in the offing. The huge supply, says USDA, means the coming year’s price range will drop between a very skinny $8.35 per bushel and a still thin $10.05 per bushel.Dairy farmers and cattle ranchers will fare little better. USDA predicts next year’s milk and cattle prices will hover near 2017’s low levels.