• Home
  • News
    • Politics / Govt
    • Legislature
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
    • Archives
  • Sports
    • Badgers
    • Packers
      • Titletown Report
    • Brewers
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support

Wisconsin Radio Network

Wisconsin News and Sports

You are here: Home / Agriculture / Corn prices: Good news-Bad news for farmers

Corn prices: Good news-Bad news for farmers

December 26, 2006 By WRN Contributor

Ethanol is either a boon or a financial squeeze for farmers in the state.

Ethanol's demand for corn is driving up the price of corn. Good news for the farmer's who grow it. But if you're a dairy farmer who doesn't raise your own feed, that higher cost of corn may be putting you in a financial bind.

Greg Steele with AgStar Financial Services and a corporate board member of the Wisconsin Dairy Business Association says about a third of the state's dairy farmers buy corn for feed rather than grow it and it's usually the larger operations that have already leveraged themselves by expanding their operations.

But Steele believes the industry is resilient. He says farmers will find other ways to keep the cost of production down. They will either find the capital to start fields of their own, use less expensive alternative feed sources to supplement the corn they do buy or find some other way to keep production costs down.

Steele doesn't see this affecting consumers at the dairy case in the short term, only if there's a sustainable increase of production costs for a long period of time.

Steele says all this is a recent development and it remains to be seen exactly how the dairy industry will react.

AUDIO: Jim Dick reports ( 1:00 MP3 )

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Agriculture



Featured Stories

Brewers avoid arbitration hearings with Hader, Woodruff

Wisconsin’s hockey game vs. ASU Friday night postponed

Madison police stepping up their presence in response to security concerns

Bucks secure third win over Pistons this season

Packers hoping COVID-19 stops with Veldheer as playoff game approaches

TwitterFacebook

Listen Now | More from Titletown ยป

Sports Headlines

Brewers avoid arbitration hearings with Hader, Woodruff

Wisconsin’s hockey game vs. ASU Friday night postponed

Bucks secure third win over Pistons this season

Packers hoping COVID-19 stops with Veldheer as playoff game approaches

Big Ten dominates the college wrestling world

More Sports

Tweets by @WRN

Get our news delivered to your inbox:

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Copyright © 2021 · Learfield News & Ag, LLC