Every year at the end of the production season I take a little time off from the blog.  Usually, I am finishing up lots of projects for the Association and working on membership, maybe take a little time with wife and see family and friends before starting back.  Well, this time was a little different. My daughter developed a condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome in August.  It is a rapid-onset of muscle weakness caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system. Typically, both sides of the body are involved, and the initial symptoms are changes in sensation or pain often in the back along with muscle weakness, beginning in the feet and hands, often spreading to the arms and upper body.  In her case, it was likely brought on by a vaccine. It was so bad, her husband, literally had to carry her around the house. Fortunately, she has recovered, although it was a very trying journey for her family and us as well.  Then, if that wasn’t enough, my 7 year old grandson was bitten by a poisonous snake while out hunting with his dad and was sent to critical care hospital in Macon. He also has recovered.  And lastly, my sweet wife underwent knee replacement surgery on Nov. 8^th.  Thankfully, she is recovering. The one thing I can say for certain is that our Heavenly Father has provided our family much grace and mercy during these trying times and equally as important, healing of bodies.  I want to thank all those that knew this was going on for their thoughts and prayers.  It was needed and truly appreciated. 

Hopefully, you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday with your family and got a respite from the busyness of life at work.  I am glad that much of this is behind us now.  So, let’s look at 2023.  From where I sit, it appears to be a mixed bag of good and not so good for all crops (corn, peanuts, cotton, soybeans).  For some, enough timely rain fell on some crops but not others.  There was a time in the late summer and early fall that no rain fell at all.  Irrigation systems were busy for the most part. Disease and insect pressure kept sprayers going.  Unfortunately, all these problems in some peanut fields have resulted in loss of quality and quantity.  Even now, there is still about 30% of the cotton crop that has not been harvested.  All in all, 2023 has been an expensive year.  

While I was thinking about what to write, I recognized that while 2023 was a good in some crops and bad in others, 2024 future pricing for all crops was truly break-even at best, even with peanuts at $625 to $650/ ton.  All crops are close to break-even (depending on what you count.).  A snap-shot of the market gives us a clue to pricing for the next year.  A lot can happen, yes, but that usually comes at the expense of someone else.

Crop	Month/yr	Price/unit
Corn	Sept 24	4.98
Soybeans	Nov 24	12.77
Cotton	Mar 24	.80
Wheat	July 24	5.99

What are the prospects for corn in 2024?  According the Agricultural Food and Policy Center, USDA’s supply and demand balance sheet for U.S. corn has a feature not seen in the corn market since the beginning of the 2019 growing season: carryover from the previous crop exceeding 2 billion bushels. That level of beginning stocks has a significant price moderating effect.  In inflation adjusted dollars, the season average farm prices have not been higher than $4.33 per bushel in the three years since 2006 during which beginning stocks exceeded 2 billion bushels.  Unfortunately, given the trend line yield estimate of 2024 (~180 bu/ac), planted acres could decline by 7 to 8 million acres from 2023 planted acres and the total carryover supply would not likely change much.

I encourage you to look at this link:  https://southernagtoday.org/2023/11/27/bridging-the-price-risk-gap/ ,  from Southern Ag Today. It highlights an article provided by Hence Duncan, Univ. Tenn. regarding risk mitigation when prices are low.

Hence stresses that as a grower, you may want to consider obtaining downside price protection for a portion of the 2024 production at the same time as inputs are purchased. One strategy is purchasing put options on the yield required to pay for the input purchased, and carrying the put option position until the projected crop insurance price is determined. Read the article; its short and a thoughtful approach to mitigating some risk where future prices are basically break-even.