(US) Soybeans Set for Record Harvest

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-exec/2006/oct/12/101204567.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - September showers came too late for cornfields in the Midwest, lowering the nationwide forecast a bit and also raising prices.

<snip>

Early harvest results for corn showed that the hot, dry summer curtailed yields more than expected across the central Corn Belt, the department said. Analysts reduced the corn forecast by 2 percent, to 10.9 billion bushels. The biggest reductions were in Illinois, Nebraska and Ohio.

<snip>

Vigorous demand from foreign customers and from U.S. ethanol plants have helped drive prices higher and are expected to cut corn surpluses by half, the department said.

The soybean crop is forecast at 3.19 billion bushels, which would be the highest production on record. Projections rose 3 percent from last month's forecast and 4 percent from last year's crop.

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[no_hypocrisy]

1. Are all the crops genetically alterred or are some "virgin"? n/t

[soothsayer]

2. I think soy was one of the first they fiddled with, evil bastards

[hunter]

3. Yum, GM soybeans...

Probably approaching 80% in most areas now.

Herbicide resistant soybeans are causing a worldwide environmental disaster. Basically the farming method is this: You kill EVERYTHING with fire, herbicides, and pesticides, and then you plant GM soybeans.

We've already wiped out much of our natural environment here in the USA, but now they are doing it in Latin America at a frightening rate, using high tech methods our U.S. "Pioneers" never had.

Industrial farming is a plague on this planet. It will probably take a few hundred thousand years to undo the damage, once it becomes unsustainable.

I have no doubts Mother Nature has some nasties brewing in her kitchen that will knock us down a peg or two. All plagues fizzle out, even humans.

But until we get smart (or die back), headlines like "(US) Soybeans Set for Record Harvest" are not good news, they are disturbing news.

[jpak]

4. SO MUCH FOR BIOFUELS

Isn't that what the cherry pickers were saying this summer????

Looks like they have been...discredited.

[JohnWxy]

5. Analysts reduced the corn forecast by TWO whole PERCENT?!. Oh, the humanity

They have reduced the forecast by 2 per cent!! AAAUUUUGGGHHHH!!

Well, I guess the rumors as to the death of American agriculture were slight exaggerations (offered with proper deference to Mark Twain).

Well, I guess we will live to see another year.

(I think it was in 2005 the corn harvest was so vast the grain elevator operators were dumping tons of corn on the ground cuzz they didn't have anyplace else to put it.)


Actually, the models for global warming do show increasingly drier conditions for the central U.S. but this will probably not take place in just one year. It will be more gradual than that. And seed producers are working on corn varieties that thrive in drier conditions. So take heart. All is not lost.

But we better start using the means we have available to us right now to reduce GHGs or things will just get worse faster. The strongest technology for reducing GHGs from transportation will be Fuel Cells. But it's going to take a couple decades for this technology to become practical and make much of an impact. In the mean time, there are things we can be doing. Among those approaches - increased efficiencies in engines and appliances and expansion of the use of renewable sources of energy.

[hunter]

6. Oh joy, more corn and soybean wastelands.

:eyes: