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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
*********************************************************************
Build Your Ark!  How to Prepare for Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times…
Book I: Food Self-Sufficiency     http://www.lis.ab.ca/walton/geri.html
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