Off topic why don't farmers strike in 2017

It is almost impossible to keep water out of gasoline in the supply system from the refinery to your fuel tank. In pure gasoline the water settles to the bottom and can be dealt with. Water doesn't do this in E10. Even with 100LL (aircraft) fuel I would occasionally drain a bit of water from the bottom of the aircraft fuel tanks when I did a preflight check. This is a big reason why the FAA has not approved E10 for aircraft use.

The thing is, none of us can see the future, and none of us can figure out the tangled web of government involvement. There's government programs that pull one direction where a different program pulls another. If you pick a pet peeve program, and want it gone, if it disappeared there would surely be an unforeseen or unintended consequence. It's easy to say the gov't should just get out of it all together, and that's a fine concept, but if you live in reality, you just absolutely know that is never going to happen.

Dan you may be right about pigs. For now. Just a few years ago the bottom completely fell out of that market too, and has recovered some I think.

I agree with your point about cattle, but actually I think it's worse, because if you sell all of them as beef weight, you are feeding 3 mouths for every 1 head of cash flow: The mother, a 1st year calf, and the second year calf that's coming up to weight. Plus a bull or 2. I sell about 1/2 of mine as fall feeders. 1/2 of what's left is raised for freezer beef for my extended family and for sale, and the last 1/4 is replacement females.

At this time, roughly 1/2 my land supports the cattle, the other 1/2 is cash flow, such as hay for sale, corn, soybeans, wheat from time to time. I am diversified, which helps a lot, just this year, it all sucks!!! At least we had a drought too.

Yup the reason I have the cows is to get my fields back in shape so I can sell the hay to the horse people. Cows can eat anything compared to horses. I think adding some pigs would make sense for me but I haven't wanted to figure out the feed and make a place for them. I am thinking maybe a dozen at the most. The down side is i don't want to keep the sow and deal with the birthing and castration of pigs so I would be stuck buying them and sometimes around here they are expensive.

Jwmac7060 wrote: Ethanol and water is the real problem...it's called phase separation...older engines,small engines,and two strokes run better on non ethanol gas.Anything with a carburetor will run better on non ethanol gas I don't care what you say...and these so called junk gas stocks you're talking about I'm not aware of in Indiana....everything comes out of our refinery at either 84 octane or 91 octane...the ethanol is then added to make the higher octane blends

Edited by Tcmtech - 29 Aug 2016 at 12:21pm

Tcmtech , that's a pretty good explanation there. Never acurred to me that there could be other things in gas besides ethanol. If this is really the case then why is this the first I have heard of it? I'd think ethanol companies would be frantically trying to clear ethanol of the water problem blame game. But they dont.   

I know one thing, you can put Coleman fuel in a lantern and 20 years from now it will still be good :) I wish I could buy it less than $10 a gallon I'd run my small engines on it

DougS wrote: It is almost impossible to keep water out of gasoline in the supply system from the refinery to your fuel tank. In pure gasoline the water settles to the bottom and can be dealt with. Water doesn't do this in E10. Even with 100LL (aircraft) fuel I would occasionally drain a bit of water from the bottom of the aircraft fuel tanks when I did a preflight check. This is a big reason why the FAA has not approved E10 for aircraft use.

Edited by Tcmtech - 29 Aug 2016 at 12:22pm

Unit3 wrote: What if we all went out and mowed down the end rows of each farm? That would do a way with any hopes of a record crop.

The deer are doing that on several of my farms. 

I have a 1964 Mercury Marine outboard motor owners manual that says you must run your motor at least once every two weeks OR use their house brand of fuel preservative/stabilizer.  Confirms my opinion that gasoline has never been at it's best when stored for very long.  That said, I don't care to store fuel systems dry, either.  I have pretty good luck topping machines off and storing them for one season (winter/summer depending on the application), though I usually drain and strain the gas out of the stored machine and mix it in with fresh gas in one of my frequently used rigs to 'get rid' of it. 

Only thing I have to add to this topic is when farm economics take turns like this I am glad I am a landlord and in a cash rent agreement. In all of my years I have NEVER seen cash rent drop significantly or for any length of time no matter what the cash grain market was doing. As one of the other posters said there is always somebody around offering big rent and keeping everyone else paying no matter how poor the current markets are.

"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoroelastomer  "
With the advent of todays world marketing, you got to look for the specs of said item and minimal at best and none to speak of otherwise.
  Above, 427 said he had his first "first possible problem" with E10... Well I ran into that first "DEFINITE PROBLEM" with that alcohol fuel in my chainsaws back in the 90's.  Specially on my old Echo and Jonsered chainsaws. The rubber tubing practically melted away into go ribbons.  went to the Echo dealer and told him I needed fuel lines, and he said "you shouldn't be using the cheap gas, Its hard on the carb gaskets too...".The Jonsered parts man said, "it's normal for old lines to crack..." I said they didn't crack, they turned to mush.. the lawn mower and weed trimmer lines got brittle and cracked."
  I did have some issues with gas delivered to the farm and one day I made a comment to the trucker and he said that many of the other farmers specify no alcohol fuel because they were tired of issues with the alcohol gas. Non A gas costs more but a whole lot less trouble, specially in winter.
 Yesterday, I finally got time to look at my little Bobcat, Wisconsin powered, figured out the fuel pump was the culprit after draining fuel tank and flushing and new filters and new lines and cleaning the carb multiple times... took the fuel pump apart, (old school style with screws) dirt in the pump, cleaned it out, and obseved that old fuel pump still had excellent rubber parts in it yet.
 Wish manufactors would build quality components yet like this pump was.   

this is different than going long or speculation. It is causing a supply/demand change and buying grain rather than raising it in amounts = to what one raises before the fatcats catch on... again an impossibility = however one day when there are only 20,000 producers left....  keep in mind the median age of the American farmer is almost 60 - think 20 years in the future... this is a serious national security issue called the greying of agriculture. There are think tank topics on this potential problem.  IF the number of farmers shrink to a point where they DO form a bargaining arm and SET a price for food instead of depending on the CBOT - the price of food will dramatically increase to workd levels- the resulting decrease in disposable income will make the great depression look like a cakewalk.  NA = US and Canada have a vibrant economy due to  less than 15% of income goes to feeding ourselves.  AKA a cheap food policy that leaves the rest 85% for widgets and other toys that build business that employs the masses. . Hats off to the American farmers, the hours they work and the money they spend in the good times and the suck it up and keep farming efforts in the bad times.  (and a govt that makes sure they don't go broke in the bad times)

Because instead of being a competition on who can pay the most rent, we would be judged on the things that matter. Like timeliness, yield, integrity , stewardship etc.. to win over a landlord.

There are still guys advertising $400 cash rent looking for land. It's people like this that drive the profit out of farming for everyone.

I do 66/33 crop share, land Lord pays 1/3 fertilizer. Works well this way,    last year when beans were 8.50 my rent was about $125 an acre. This year with corn it will be more but still not bad.

How do you think all the guys feel that signed long term cash rent when prices were $7? Are they still paying that figure with $3 corn?





Edited by Dmpaul89 - 30 Aug 2016 at 7:52am

What farmers need to do is form a coop that is actually the farmers themselves and buy and sell through it. If you could get 90% of the farms in a state to approach the seed company together and say if you want to sell here this is the price you would be amazed at the deal you would get. Big business understands value discounts. As a controls engineer I worked for both small and big companies and when I went to a big company I couldn't understand why they bothered to use a particular vendor who had a rep of being very expensive turned out they where cheaper in volume sales then the company's I had been buying from in the past. So in about 40 years when there are just a few mega farms the seed companies will be stuck and the mega farms will either rent for nothing or own the land....