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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHarvesting in a trade war: US crops rot as storage costs soar
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.
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.
"No one wants them," Fontenot said in a telephone interview. As he spoke, he drove his tractor across a soybean field, tilling under his crop. "I don't know what else to do."
Across the United States, grain farmers are plowing under crops, leaving them to rot or piling them on the ground, in hopes of better prices next year, according to interviews with more than two dozen farmers, academic researchers and farm lenders. It's one of the results, they say, of a U.S. trade war with China that has sharply hurt export demand and swamped storage facilities with excess grain.
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That will teach china not to mess with amurica.
Botany
(70,516 posts)Richard Fontenot
70% Trump voters
Evangeline Parish 28.28% Clinton 69.61% Trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Louisiana,_2016
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Evangeline_Parish_Louisiana_Incorporated_and_Unincorporated_areas_Ville_Platte_Highlighted.svg
duforsure
(11,885 posts)And now many will suffer from their own voting. Just maybe now they realize they were conned out of their vote, while he's destroying OUR Democracy,, and their lives. No matter what he claims , he's lying and he is blowing smoke up their backside, again.
yortsed snacilbuper
(7,939 posts)to hold them over till they win the trade war?
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Tower farms can produce 4-6x the yield on 1/10th the land. So feeding a growing world would be easier with tower farms and we will have more space for wildlife and people.
onethatcares
(16,172 posts)their livelihood. But I'm sure this guy voted for the con.
He'll forget that as soon as the economic crash is pinned on the Democratic Party though.
Now, plowing the beans under may help the soil in the next planting. Leave the chemicals out and amend the soil naturally.
I think farmers used to do that all the time along with leaving acreage go to weeds or rotating crops. It provides a natural
defense against crop diseases I believe. The extended monoculture of industrial farms is part of the cause of our diseases and loss of wildlife.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)He has Rye, Soybeans, one other crop and he raises Crayfish. In theory either income stream could sustain him, or at least keep him on his feet. He sounded pretty liberal on the environment and the need to conserve and protect it. Maybe or most likely he voted for Trump, but over 28% in his county did not, the question is was he one of that 28%.
The true risk to farmers like him are big money tower farms. Those will be almost strictly big business affairs and will wipe guys like him out. A tower can be laid on 4 acres and be set to run 60-90 farming stories, that is 60-90 acres of crops on 4 acres of land. Plus the tower farm can turn 2-6 harvests a year per acre, depending on the crop. On 100 acres, a big business can build 10-15, 60-90 story tower farms and creste the equivalent of up to 1200-2700+ annual acres of production. The potential to feed lots of people on very little land is great, but what it will do to traditional farmers and farm workers is scary, the tower farm are highly automated, so they don't need a lot of workers.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)crop insurance from the Summer Weather Damage ? Don't think this fellow would be able to pay for the Fuel otherwise.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,035 posts)Winning Trump style.