2009 Not so Bad?

 In the New Year, everybody wants to put on a happy face, make new resolutions, move forward with a positive view and in the last couple of years say something like…”Let’s all hope this year is better than last. But wait…2009 may not have been as bad as we think…at least in terms of agriculture.

 During the first few weeks of 2010, agricultural analysts and historian are finishing up their accounts of 2009 and certainly after the wild price swings, food scares, trade embargos, food vs. fuel debates of 2008 (I mean how many stories did we do on ethanol driving up input costs to farmers…although that whole mess is turning into a positive…but I digress), “2009 was something of a little bit of return to normalcy you might say.” That’s Agriculture Department Outlook Chairman Jerry Bange saying in his wrap-up that 2009 was “a year that has sort of calmed things down a little bit and gotten more on an even plane. We continue to have good production numbers even with the late harvest in the U.S. and so forth, but generally speaking it was a pretty good production year around the world and things semed to have settled down.” Ethanol became a predictable user of corn, not a market disrupter and Bange says as we start a new year we are at least starting it on an even keel as far as commodity markets are concerned.