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Illinois economy follows corn market
The drop in the price of corn between 2012 and 2013 means a nearly seven-and-a-half billion dollar loss to the Illinois economy. That’s according to analysis by Western Illinois University for the Illinois Corn Growers Association.
Tricia Braid, with the Illinois Corn Growers Association, says the sliding corn market negatively affected everything from Gross Domestic Product to jobs.
“What it boils down to is this,” said Braid, in an interview with Brownfield Ag News, “what’s good for Illinois agriculture is good for the economy at large, so when we’re supporting corn prices, we’re supporting Illinois, period.”
On the other hand, Jim Robb, with the Livestock Marketing Information Center, which keeps tabs on the economics of the cattle business, notes that there was a drop of $3.05 in the corn market in the year leading up to this past February.
“That’s translated into a drop in [cattlemen’s] cost of gain by about $35.50 per hundredweight, so obviously this has helped return into the black after really over two years of red ink,” said Robb.
“And they have bid some of this profit, in fact much of this profit back into feeder cattle prices,” he said, “and so that has benefited both the cow/calf operations and stocker operations.”
The corn price dropped because of production returning to normal after severe drought, while corn demand was limited by what the Illinois Corn Growers Association refers to as arbitrary caps on the ethanol market.
AUDIO: Tricia Braid (4 min. MP3)
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