Contracts

U of I. Agriculture economist Gareth Taylor says some forecasts are rosy, others not so much. Despite what everybody's telling when we look at new record highs on the gross and the net, certainly the growth and it'll be touch and go. This is not a difficult year I think. David, one of the big things that you have to look at, there's been a trend in farming, David, the last 20 some odd years, more and more farm goods are being contracted. You see it, there was a time when milk was never contracted. You got your check from the creamery and the local cheese plant or whatever it is. And then you knew the price. They were never contracted. Well, you know, so much of the milk silage has all contracted. What I hear is we're even contracting hay now and certainly a lot of other crops that were never contracted, you know, potatoes, more and more onions are being contracted. Dry beans. All of these were being contracted. Well, those contracts were set back when in February you contract and those people said, oh, my goodness, we made a contract. It looks fairly good for us. Well, that didn't include the prices we see now. That's one of your big sore spots right there, David. Your listeners ought to listen to that story. What you contracted for may not be able to cover your cost because you were not able to contract for your diesel and your fertilizer. So that's the real dark cloud for some people. They didn't contract for high enough prices to cover their costs. Speaker1: 2020 hindsight.