Tina McGrady | tmcgrady@jrpress.com
John Gable had a sense of relief in his voice Sunday evening as he listened to it rain outside his home near Colfax.
The COVID-19 pandemic has farmers in fear of another struggling year, but it hasn’t stopped them from pushing forward with the 2020 planting season.
“When I think about my situation, I’m glad to have the crop in the ground,” Gable said. “Fortunately as farmers we do what we do. It’s time to plant and when the conditions are right, you get everything done that you possibly can, regardless of what the outlook is. It’s a tribute to the American Farmer.”
A wet spring in 2019 kept many farmers from getting both corn and soybeans planted on time, and forced many to replant in certain areas.
This spring the market has tumbled in just the last three months. On Tuesday, July futures on corn traded at $3.21 a bushel, while soybeans were at $8.46.
Gable said he was able to empty his bins back in February before the prices turned south, but other farmers weren’t as lucky. He also said crop insurance is vital, helping with both last years’ wet spring and this years’ unstable market.
“The one good thing we have is that crop insurance is a necessity for situations like we are in right now,” he said. “Prices were set on an average at the end of February and grain markets hadn’t yet reacted to the virus. There’s kind of a safety net in crop insurance.”
Sennett Farms in the western part of Montgomery County is seeing the negative effects of COVID-19 in both grain and livestock farming.
Lance Sennett said until last week they had been unable to sell any cattle in well over a month. He said euthanization in the cattle industry is not yet taking place, but being forced to hang on to them much longer will lead to widespread losses.
“They get really really big and then you get discounted on them,” Sennett, who feeds on average 2,000 cattle a year, said. “We will lose $200-$300 a head on them.”
As processing plants slowly reopen, they will still only run at 50% capacity. The fourth-generation farmer also counts on grain farming each year, and is worried about the outlook in both markets.
“I’m worried now,” he said. “We haven’t had a good run for a long time. This agriculture thing has been bad for a couple of years. Growing up we always fed cattle and grained farm. When one thing was bad the other was good, and it kind of evened itself out, but the last couple of years it has been all bad.”
Gable says it is hard to define a good year financially. 2012 was one of the worst droughts on record, but he said that was one of the last good profit years farmers have had.
“We’ve been six years in an economic decline in agriculture and the last two years it’s been visible, and the other four years it’s just been on paper,” he said. “Income is a concern, and that’s the bottom line. And that’s why we see larger farmers getting more ground, because the profit margins are slimming, and looking at 2020 it’s getting even slimmer.”
While the government has intervened with relief on the grain side in the past, Sennett said they’ve never done anything for livestock until now.
On April 17, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which will take several actions to assist farmers, ranchers, and consumers in response to the COVID-19 national emergency. The program will provide $16 billion in direct support based on actual losses for agricultural producers where prices and market supply chains have been impacted and will assist producers with additional adjustment and marketing costs resulting from lost demand and short-term oversupply for the 2020 market year caused by COVID-19.
Gable, who is also a seed dealer for Beck’s Hybrids, says innovation in seed technology has helped cut costs in producing a quality crop.
“I think seed companies are having better genetics available,” he said. “The seed that we are planting are perhaps more efficient in using the soil that we are planting it in. It uses nitrogen more efficiently, some of these hybrids have drought resistance and they have insect resistance. So we’ve been saving money because we haven’t really seen an increase in cost as much over the last few years.”
With each struggling year optimism from farmers is hard to come by, but Gable says it doesn’t stop them from continuing to do their job to best of their abilities.
“Farmers, we are a resilient bunch,” he said. “No matter what the situation or the circumstance we find a way to get the job done and do the best we can despite the conditions the past few years, we continue to improve our methods, become more efficient, and there’s something to be learned every season. That’s how I remain optimistic is just routine and do a good job.”
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Farmers worried with grain prices down, livestock processing slowed during pandemic - Journal Review
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