01/08/09 Wheat commodities

Idaho Farm Bureau President Frank Priestley recently had mixed news when he reported that Idaho Farmers who now face financial challenges will ultimately win the battle of the buck despite the downturn in the economy. Idaho Wheat farmers, are amongst those who are wondering about the future and Blaine Jacobson, Executive Director of the Idaho Wheat Commission, recently offered thoughts about such issues including strong commodity prices which tailed off at the end of the season. "Commodity prices in general got over-heated. A lot of dollars went into commodity index funds and it drove up all of the commodities, oil, copper, wheat, corn, other grains, I think that investors realized that they were over heated at the same time we had this financial meltdown, and a number of investors needed to cover positions in various investments and so they started to sell. I think that commodities have probably gone down too far now." Our friends on Wall Street may have thrown a curve ball, but wheat farmers batting in the future, or make that betting on the future, have lots to look forward to. (Jacobson) "The supply and demand will reassert itself. There's going to be a sorting out, some commodities will start to go back up and some commodities investors will realize that maybe they were over invested, but in the case of wheat, demand and the world consumption of wheat is still growing and so we would expect that as soon as we get all of this funny stuff worked out, that we'll start to see wheat prices increase again."