Are you worried about high commodity prices? What are you doing to protect yourself?

Question

Considering that corn seems to now be tied to the price of oil, everything else is tied to corn (corn is taking away acres from almost everything else and soy:corn should be priced 2-2:5:1), and oil may be pushed up by speculation, are you worried what a sudden drop in oil prices may do to the price of everything else(corn, soy, cotton, etc)? Especially now that fertilizer and rents have gone up? Wheat seems to be one thing that has been in shorter supply due to droughts worldwide and lower ending stocks.

Answer 1

there are going to be some tough times ahead prices are high it is kind of balancing it's self right now contract for the future don't spend when commodity prices are high in December buy all your inputs and then contract enough grain to cover inputs don't forget insurance spend a few more dollars and buy the better insurance insurance is the key to surviving grab every dollar you can now from insurance and goverment programs because you will need them later because sometime in the future you will plant 7 dollar corn and sell it for 3 dollars another words learn to farm the goverment and insurace companies and the rest will fall in to place

Answer 2

We grow 90% of our own food on our own farm.  We also have about a two years worth of food storage now.

We live completely debt free, except for the mortgage, and the few bills we have not yet done away with, like electric.  

We will be paying of the mortgage by half in one lump sum this October (we've owned it for 5 years, if that gives you a hint as to how serrious we are about living debt free).

We are frugal, but not at all cheap.  Few people understand the difference.  We always buy the best QUALITY items we can.  For example, my wheelbarrel cost about $120 over 10 years ago.  My neighbor continues to purchase the $39.95 pieces of junk ones every year.  Mine still looks like new, with zero repairs.  They purchase one every year.  They have now spent at least $399.95 on wheelbarrels in 10 years.  My cost is now down to $12 per year.  That's what I mean by frugal, but not cheap.

We also never buy trendy.  We buy what WE like, and we buy quality.  

Our farm will soon be producing it's own water, power, heat, and even fuel to run our trucks and tractors (via rapeseed), as well as the food we eat.  

We invest ourselves in our friends and family, NOT trips to amusement parks and titanic size TV's.

Because everything is tied to the price of soy, and ESPECIALLY corn, we have done our very best to divorce ourselves from any products that contain corn.

We continue to hone our skills and learning which makes us independent of the outside world.  To this end, we will be building our new home from the ground up, ourselves.

The only bills we expect to have in another five years will be the internet, cell phones, and taxes, because we simply cannot escape them.  The internet, and cell phones are simply luxuries we enjoy (did you notice I said nothing about TV?).

We protect ourselves by being independant, and self sufficient.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Answer 3

Well I must say I'm not too worried, and that is because I too, am growing 90% of my own food (salt is always a problem though). I have a big truck garden and a small orchard, we raise beef cows and porkers, chickens and ducks, sheep for meat. I also have a small dairy opperation,milk cows and Alpine Milch goats supply milk for the cheeses I make, and that is an opperation that needs grain.

This year I took all the manure from winter, spread it, tilled it under and planted some "painted mountain" field corn, (about two acres). The corn is doing great. It's more than half high. I have already built a good rat proof corn crib, just like my great Grandpappy's ( I come from a solid, old timey, blue ridge mountain farmer family) to take the crop. Going to coarse grind it and feed it off when my cows and goats freshen this winter as a corn and cob meal.

I chose Painted mountain corn, for several reasons, it makes a fair eatting corn in the milk stage, an excellent sweet nutty corn meal,has a short growing season, drys down fast, stands in the field well, is drought resistant, is a very reliable cropper,  has a high protien content, and it is one of the most beautiful corns I have ever seen, and  that makes it a good extra cash crop, if I sell some for "indian corn" in the fall. It is really hard to get the seed though...it is so popular with third world growers that the seed is in high demand.

I also put in a 1/2 acre of sunflowers, they are high in protien, and my animals love them, so they are going in the grain mix as well along with the local manznita berries I harvest, and the dryed grape pumise i process, which comes from a from my neigbor who has a small winery . It ought to suppliment my critters pretty well along with the pasture grass they eat.

I personally have grown wheat, barley, rye, corn, sunflowers, soybeans, rice, and oats...experimentally in small plots, for five years in a row, to see which of these does the best in my area and to adapt seed to my area. I really like barley as an animal feed, it matures fast and is easy to feed out, as is, without threshing it. Wheat has long prickery awns that the animals don't really like much, so you got to thresh it, but it does make tasty bread.

As far as I can see, many of the things happening now are what a lot of us forsaw in the '60's. I have been preparing for this time for a long while. I actually think the rise in oil prices is a good thing for humanity. At least here in the USA, it is about time we the people stopped being so wasteful, and started thinking differently. We need to move away from the "consume, consume, consume" mentality that arose during the middle of the last century, and embrase the "good house holder" principles that stood our forefathers in good (home)stead. The old fokes I used to know always tried to find a use for things, my grand mother even used to crochete bread wrapers into foot mats for her front door...who would ever do that now? When my great grand mother died at 93 there was a crop of her potatoes in the ground that still needed to be dug.

This week I am researching horse drawn equipment on line, I have a nice pair of matched black morgan geldings, think I want to put them to work... When I was a kid I learned to ride on old Molly, a work horse of nondescript breeding, I sat on her when my Uncle cut the hay, my job was to watch for rocks and sticks and such, that might dull the blades... I loved it. The sky, the smell of the horse, the swish of the grass, the smell of the new mown hay, the quiet clicking of th mow blades....

My family always had plenty, and were honest, loyal, practical hard working people. We worked hard, laughed a lot, and pulled together with our fellow men. That is what we need to do again in the USA and the world at large. Forget oil prices, lets join gas-aholics anonomous, one by one.

Answer 4

I want to go live with Bohemian . I've cashed away a year or two of dry goods and there are a few hundred head of cattle , Along with Elk and dear . I'm looking at a year of turmoil then some type society will develop And with skills and trade goods I look to fit in . If not Bang Bang .