The Price of Cookies, Soda and Cake expected to rise soon.
Associated Press
Issue date: 6/23/08 Section: News
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - In a year of rising food prices and high fuel costs that are creating pressure to produce more ethanol, the country could really use a perfect corn crop.
So far, it isn't happening.
And depending on the right mix of sun, heat, rain and cool, it could drive prices up even further. That may mean consumers will be spending even more for groceries like soda, cookies, cake or anything that contains high fructose corn syrup and for any meat that relies on corn as animal feed.
A cold, wet spring put crop planting weeks behind schedule across much of the U.S. Corn Belt and drastically slowed growth where corn is already in the ground.
Now, farmers in parts of Iowa, Illinois and Indiana are replanting corn that either sat under water in flooded fields too long to germinate or can't break through sodden, compacted soils. And the cool, soggy weather continues, the last thing a heat-loving crop like corn needs.
"It's starting to look like a very difficult year," University of Illinois agronomy professor Emerson Nafziger said.
Now, farmers and crop experts say it's up to the weather to deliver an ideal growing season to make up for the slow start.
"I haven't given up hope yet," said Roger Elmore, a corn expert at Iowa State University.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said this week 88 percent of the corn crop has been planted. Last year at this time, farmers were all but finished. This year's figure doesn't account for farmers who have to replant - that number won't be known for possibly months.
The later corn is planted, the less it will yield, Nafziger said. Corn planted in mid June in central Illinois, for instance, is likely to produce only about half what it would if planted in early May.
Late planting and USDA projections that farmers will plant less corn this year - in spite of heavy demand for corn to make ethanol, animal feed and other products - have propped up corn prices, keeping them near record highs.
Those prices, while potentially adding to already high prices for food, offer farmers like Terry Bartley the prospect of a lucrative year.
So far, it isn't happening.
And depending on the right mix of sun, heat, rain and cool, it could drive prices up even further. That may mean consumers will be spending even more for groceries like soda, cookies, cake or anything that contains high fructose corn syrup and for any meat that relies on corn as animal feed.
A cold, wet spring put crop planting weeks behind schedule across much of the U.S. Corn Belt and drastically slowed growth where corn is already in the ground.
Now, farmers in parts of Iowa, Illinois and Indiana are replanting corn that either sat under water in flooded fields too long to germinate or can't break through sodden, compacted soils. And the cool, soggy weather continues, the last thing a heat-loving crop like corn needs.
"It's starting to look like a very difficult year," University of Illinois agronomy professor Emerson Nafziger said.
Now, farmers and crop experts say it's up to the weather to deliver an ideal growing season to make up for the slow start.
"I haven't given up hope yet," said Roger Elmore, a corn expert at Iowa State University.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said this week 88 percent of the corn crop has been planted. Last year at this time, farmers were all but finished. This year's figure doesn't account for farmers who have to replant - that number won't be known for possibly months.
The later corn is planted, the less it will yield, Nafziger said. Corn planted in mid June in central Illinois, for instance, is likely to produce only about half what it would if planted in early May.
Late planting and USDA projections that farmers will plant less corn this year - in spite of heavy demand for corn to make ethanol, animal feed and other products - have propped up corn prices, keeping them near record highs.
Those prices, while potentially adding to already high prices for food, offer farmers like Terry Bartley the prospect of a lucrative year.
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