Officials with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute say biofuels will drive agriculture for at least the next 10 years.
This story from Southeast Farm Press quotes FAPRI livestock analyst as saying “It’s hard to talk about a baseline without saying something about biofuels.”
“We’re expecting in 2008 that ethanol production from corn to be nearly 11 billion gallons and continuing to grow to 15 billion gallons. The recently passed legislation (by Congress mandating biofuel usage) certainly has an effect on ethanol production long-term.”
However, ethanol production is just one of the reasons why FAPRI — whose reports are relied upon by Congress when crafting legislation — sees crop prices “that have moved higher. When looking at the baseline, we anticipate those will continue to (remain) higher.
“It’s also important to note that export demand has been strong in a number of cases. We’ve been surprised at the strength of corn exports given a major run-up in corn prices.”
For soybeans, FAPRI sees “nearly 70 million acres being planted. We continue to watch this closely. These numbers were done back in January and market prices have changed and the acreage mix will continue to make adjustments. Until we get to spring planting, these numbers could move substantially given the types of price changes occurring.”
Brown says the combination of high feed prices along with increased fuel prices will make it pretty tough on livestock producers’ bottom lines for the next several years.