Loading...
The Rural Voice, 1993-12, Page 22EST. 1873 ho ick MUTUAL INS WROXETER 519-335-3561 1 ... And she gave birth to her first- born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. Luke 2:7 May all the joys of the Christmas Season be with you and your family. Merry Christmas URANCE COMPANY , ONTARIO -800-265-3033 LUCKNOW Built to Last EQUIPMENT SNOWBLOWERS FEED MIXER WAGONS FEED MIXERS GRAIN BUGGIES GRAIN CARTS FEED TANKS ROTARY CUTTERS Season's Best Wishes HELM WELDING LIMITED LUCKNOW, ONTARIO, CANADA PHONE 519-529-7627 18 THE RURAL VOICE Grain Markets fLJ um - Fireworks in grain markets The last 30 days have seen more action in grain prices than we've seen for many months. The USDA crop production reports of November 9 set the stage for real fireworks and most markets were "limit up" on November 10. Since that date, prices have stabilized. Personally, I am not as surprised by the production figures as much as I am by the timing. USDA is not known to make radical changes from one report to the next. CORN The USDA corn production number finally confirmed what many of us expected, but I thought they would wait until December to issue a 6.5 billion bushel crop size. We now know the projected production by state and just how devastating the rain, clouds and cool weather was to the com crop west of the Mississippi. As a result, corn futures moved from $2.61 to $2.85 basis December futures in two days. We are now into the higher harvest prices that I've been talking about for the last three months. Now, the market will go high enough to ration supplies because the U.S. production is enough to cover only normal domestic consumption. Right now, it appears that prices may ration the crop early so producers should be ready to "pull the trigger" on sales. Projected ending stocks were lowered to 881 million bushels or 11.36 per cent of usage, a far cry from the 2.1 billion bushel carryover of this year. Now, the U.S. farmer will have to grow more com to restore a more normal stocks position. This can be accomplished in two ways. Firstly, it appears the government set aside of five per cent will be dropped for 1994