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Analyst says expect high feed costs to stick around

A marketing and risk management analyst says high feed costs are going to be around for a while.

Broker and risk management expert Mike North with ever.ag tells Brownfield as he looks at the landscape for grain production in 2022, there are already astronomically high fertilizer prices and other input costs that are going up. “It’s going to put pressure on the grain side of things likely taking away acres from corn and/or soybeans depending on how it plays out, and that naturally then keeping prices elevated as we go forward.”

North says over the past several years, farmers had become comfortable with $3.50 to $4.50 a bushel corn. “This year (it’s) a very different story. Corn trading at $5.30, $5.20 as silage harvest came through, and that kind of an increase in feed costs is going to send real shock waves through the system and a lot of dairymen are feeling it.”

North says prices will also likely stay higher if USDA is successful in getting a significant number of acres enrolled in the CRP program, but he says the new CRP acres will probably not come from dairy farmers who need the land for feed production and manure application.

North spoke to Brownfield at World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin.