12-10 FB Corn Futures

 Corn becoming more attractive to Idaho growers. We’ve seen in recent months a trend toward corn prices going up, certainly as it relates to feeder corn. In fact, I talked last month to Emmett farmer Vaughn Jensen as he was harvesting corn and this is what he said. “: “I’m combining some corn in the neighbor’s field. We haven’t harvested a kernel of our corn yet, we probably will start in a couple days our harvest is a little late. Presently prices are good. We contracted some earlier and the prices are good enough now that we wish we hadn’t but that’s how the ball bounces.” Well, Five dollar cash corn seems to be a pretty good price to Darrel Good. He’s an ag economist at the University of Illinois and I think his message for Idaho farmers is think corn: “When you start with the question of is the current price a profitable price looking at a $5 cash bid, harvest delivery, I think a lot of producers say that works pretty well with current costs and a trend yield next year so that would entice one towards making some pricing decisions since that’s a pretty good profit level. The second consideration would be even if new crop prices fade, when would that happen? Will that happen before or after the base price on revenue insurance is established next February. If current prices hold through February, then we’ve got an awfully high base price for revenue insurance and that says we can be less aggressive about marketing as well.”