Projected Corn Shortage and Hunting

BAU for me. Buying most of it, and stocking the freezer for the rest.

I imagine there will be plenty of "deer corn", but it will cost a good bit more than last season.

The sad thing is the drought the rest of the country is having (we had ours last year in Texas) will decrease the deer populations next year.
But harvesting them this fall will allow better quality deer, if fewer in number.

I generally get around six deer tags a year and usually fill two.....this year they will all be filled for meat in the freezer. Store bought meat is getting too high.

The higher price for corn will result in someone doing without.....exports, ethanol plants, or livestock feed. My guess is the export market will come up short because of the strong demand in this country.

I doubt if most of us will notice much difference. A bag of Frito's may be 10 cents more. There have been shortages of every crop ever planted since the beginning of recorded history. This year it is corn, last year it was tomatoes, next year it will be something else. What it really means is that farmers in one part of the county will lose money this year, others in another part of the country that have a good crop will make a fortune. The cycle of life will continue just as it has in the past.

jmr40, next time you're in a grocery store, check how many products use corn syrup. The price of dairy products and all meats will rise, as well.

Not just corn syrup, but corn products of all types are found in about 80% of grocery store products, even if it is just packaging, or flavoring

On the 120 acres I hunt in East Texas we had more rain in the month of March 2012 than we had in all of 2011. We have had 2-4 inches of rain every month this year. I feel for the rest of the country, but as mentioned we had our drought last year. It is nice to plant food plots that actually grow.

If there is a corn shortage as far as wildlife feeding/hunting goes then more people will be feeding (where legal) certain parts of the year instead of year round, or setting their automated feeders to feed shorter durations.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

Its not just the corn supply and prices that will have a detrimental effect on the price of meat, beef in particular. In mid-June I was at the ranch where I spend my annual Father's Day Prairie Dog shoot and got to talk to a bunch of ranchers at a Bronc ride. They were all complaining about the drought, and how they couldn't remember the last year they had to start buying hay in June.

Higher feed cost, both forage and processed, has to be made up somewhere.

As for more participation in hunting as a correlation? I don't know. However, I wouldn't expect folks unaccustomed to eating wild game to suddenly gain a taste for it strictly for cost reasons. But of course, I've been wrong before...just ask my wife!

Last year the drought in Texas drove beef prices higher than ever and they still haven't come down. So I guess they will get even higher.
The main factor driving corn prices so high is ethanol. I read a article that said it took 1.6 gallons of fossil fuel to produce a gallon of ethanol. Then they put in gas reducing mileage and ruining small engine carburetors.
In answer the ops post yes I plan to eat more deer . I usually just keep the back straps but I plan on keeping the hams for barbeque. My wife has a great recipe for it.

Portraying ethanol as the sole problem isn't completely accurate.....after the ethanol is extracted a by-product DDGS (Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles) is used for livestock feed. It's a high nutrient feed used by the livestock industry. When ethanol plants make ethanol, they use only starch from corn and grain sorghum. The remaining nutrients - protein, fiber and oil - are the by-products used to create livestock feed.

A third of the grain that goes into ethanol production comes out as DDGS. Each bushel of grain used in the ethanol-making process produces 2.7 gallons of ethanol; 18 pounds of DDGS and 18 pounds of carbon dioxide.

Is that legal, hogshead? We have to take all edible meat here.

I give what I dont want to my neighbors. They eat anything and most of the time they skin it to.

Don't get me started about how my freezer went out earlier this year. I about cried throwing all that eat out.

With the recent drought, corn prices/projections and futures have skyrocketed.
All meat prices, beef particularly, is going to go through the roof for who knows how long. Indeed, prices of most anything (from tires to gasoline - ethanol related) are going to increase.
I predict that the country will be hunted and fished harder than in a long time, out of necessity.
What are your plans given the above? Stocking up on tags etc? Buying a new freezer?
Good luck to us all.

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Meat prices are going to come down in the short term. Expect them to skyrocket (to insane levels) next year as the herds are decimated this year. Packers are processing as many as possible right now.

Ethanol has no impact on the price of gasoline. Rather, gasoline (oil) impacts the price of corn. Unless Obama cuts the ethanol mandate (good luck with that) the nation will put a priority on burning corn for ethanol rather than food.

Its an asinine policy. And will make this disaster that much worse.

hogshead said:

The main factor driving corn prices so high is ethanol. I read a article that said it took 1.6 gallons of fossil fuel to produce a gallon of ethanol.

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Afraid that number doesn't add up........one bushel of corn produces 2.7 gallons of ethanol, if it takes 1.6 gallons of fossil fuel to make a gallon, then that 2.7 gallons of ethanol takes 4.32 gallons of fuel to produce. At $3.00 a gallon for fuel (that's cheap), it would take $12.96 in fuel to produce one bushel of corn. Unless corn prices double, there's no way.

So, allow me to ask, ranchers are going to liquidate cattle because they expect the feed to either be unavailable or super expensive, going into next year, so we should expect short term lower beef prices.

Do I understand that correctly?

We will do what we always do.

We buy a steer for butcher every year and have it processed. I buy a 1100 to 1200# red or black angus farm raised no steroids or any of that crap. Processed it runs on average 2.93 a pound of meat. So in the end you get steaks, ribs, brisket, roast for less than the price of budget hamburger per pound.

We will also do a 200 to 250# hog same type of deal. Its a fair amount of money up front but far cheaper than the supermarket. We just buy all our meat once a year. To supplement we'll take 3 deer or so maybe 4 and a feral hog or two. My family of 6 eats alot of meat and we do it as cost effective as we can.

So, allow me to ask, ranchers are going to liquidate cattle because they expect the feed to either be unavailable or super expensive, going into next year, so we should expect short term lower beef prices.

Do I understand that correctly?

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I believe you are correct.
We typically market around 175000-200000 bushels/yr. of #2 yellow corn. We are expecting our corn crop to be a total loss. We have received less than 1 inch of rain since May 1, and many days of 100+ degree days

I feel your pain, I really do. I see things like this on the news, every week, every day.

These are terrible times we live in. I don't want to talk too much about SHTF because everyone has their own views on it.