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Grain Update: Blame Murphy
Grain Supply Update: August 23, 1996
Blame It All on Murphy
© Geri Guidetti, 1996
Last week I ended this weekly update with the words: "A ‘nutshell
summary’? Keep fingers and toes crossed for U.S. harvests across the
board. Too many things have already gone wrong, and there’s no
guarantee that it’s over. It’s too close to call for this year’s food
supplies, hence prices. Then there’s old Murphy’s Law to worry about…."
Well, this week we may as well go ahead and blame Murphy for the
widespread contamination of the southern Texas corn crop with the
powerful carcinogen, aflatoxin. In fact, TX state chemist, George
Latimer, suggests that about half of the crop is unfit for human
consumption. While there were hopes that this year’s harvest would yield
162 million bushels—already 25% lower than last year’s, according to the
Wall Street Journal -- the aflatoxin outbreak will dim even those modest
prospects.
Discovered in 1960 when 100,000 young turkeys died from eating meal
infested with the toxin-producing fungus, Aspergillus flavus,
aflatoxins are found in grains and nuts. The extended drought in
southern TX rendered the corn especially susceptible this year, and the
timing could not be worse. Though TX is not a major corn-producing
state, severely dwindling U.S. stockpiles make ALL of this year’s
harvests very important. The early TX harvest was expected to tide us
over until the Midwest corn belt is harvested in the Fall.
Unfortunately, aflatoxins work their way through feed and seed into the
food chain. Milk is regularly tested for the carcinogen, and must
contain no more than 0.5 parts per billion (ppb). Already, one TX dairy
was forced to dump the milk of cattle who had been fed
fungus-contaminated grain. Cattle feedlot operators are permitted to
use corn with greater than 20 ppb if the grain is first treated with
ammonia to decompose the toxin molecules.
The bigger corn harvest picture across the Midwestern corn belt has also
grown a bit less sunny. Cooler than normal growing temperatures and
late planting dates have left corn plant development 18 percent behind
the 5-year average by Aug. 17. Fields in Ohio, an important producer,
are a staggering 58% behind normal. While the USDA lowered its estimate
of this season’s corn harvest by 400 million bushels on Aug. 12, traders
this week have been reducing their estimates by as much as one billion
bushels. On Aug. 19, the USDA reported that only 37% of the crop had
reached the critical, kernel-filling, dough stage, while 55% is usual
this far into the season. Obviously this makes my earlier predictions
of potential corn crop losses to this Fall’s frosts even more likely.
Once the first heavy frost hits, the plants die, halting maturation.
Frost is now also a very big worry for the shrinking national soybean
stockpiles, already at 20-year lows. Dry weather and late plantings had
slowed down crop development this season, yet pessimism gave way to
optimism when rains arrived late in the week. The
simultaneous arrival of much cooler temperatures, however, negated the
possible growth gains. As of Aug. 17, the condition of the soybean
crop had decreased. Though most still lie in the good to fair
category, more fields have slipped into poor or very poor condition.
With cash prices for soybeans running about 40% higher than they were a
year ago, farmers and buyers, alike, are hoping for an unusually late
arrival date for frost. Three weeks late looks like a good guess at the
moment. Though three weeks delay is very unusual, these are very
unusual times.
A bright spot in an otherwise dimming picture has been the progress of
Spring wheat. For the 5 main producing states, 33% of the crop had been
harvested by Aug. 18, up 3 points from the 5-year average. But, by Aug.
19, lower than expected yields were being noted across the Great Plains,
and a resurgence of a fungal disease in North Dakota that contributed to
small harvests in 1994 and 1995 had also been discovered. Keep in mind,
of course, that this year’s Spring wheat crop is expected to soften the
blow of the enormous Winter wheat losses this year.
Can we look to dramatically changing weather patterns during the
remainder of the season to improve grain and bean harvest prospects?
Short-term data indicates the probability of little drought relief in
drought-stricken West and Southwest -- a few thunderstorms and
fast-moving systems to tease the soil and its inhabitants, but nothing
to reverse crop losses and brighten farmers’ faces. In fact, wildfire
activity in these states continued above the 5-year normal. By Aug. 19,
4.3 million acres—more than 6700 sq. mi., had burned since January.
That’s a full 247 percent of average. Most areas with below normal
temperatures, including the now critical corn belt states, are predicted
to remain below normal. Areas already wet are forecast to get wetter.
It is late August. The time for good weather news to begin is now. If
you don’t see it happening over the course of this week, plan to spend a
lot more for food well into 1997. It’s still not too late to stock
up….Geri Guidetti, The Ark Institute
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