Spending my summer vacation virtually every year on my family's dairy farm in Wisconsin and growing up in a rural part of Michigan whose main business was farming, has given me a solid amount of prospectus when it comes to farming.
Farming is a brutally tough business not only physically but mentally as well. There are so many things that are beyond a farmers control such as the weather, political decisions, and world events that can have an impact on their bottom line.
I believe that this Cranes piece will give readers a sense of what farmers are facing right now not only here in Michigan but across the US when it comes to these uncontrollable events.
- A major uncertainty: The prices that farmers will receive for their crops or dairy products have them guessing at profit margins more than usual at this point in the season.
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- For example, if the agreed-on price was $6 per bushel of corn when the contract was signed and now the price has hit $9, then farmers who agreed to sell at $6 have left $3 a bushel on the table if their farms don't yield enough to fill the contract. Because to fill the contract, farmers must buy the crop at $9 to sell for $6.
- "The biggest thing is, we just don't know," Woelmer said. "If you don't know what your profit margin is going to be, you kind of just put everything on hold and take a wait-and-see attitude."
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