Saturday, January 23, 2010

Argentina Soybeans



Soybeans are the biggest field crop in Argentina. One of reasons for this is the Argentinian government has a "cheap food policy" and politically forces down the price of any crop grown for human or cattle feed. This means if they grow wheat they don't get paid much, probably near or below the cost of production.

Soybeans are an export crop so they are sold on the Chicago Stock exchange at the world price. The government does tax the farmer 35% of his crop before regular taxes. Even so they still grow soybeans. These beans are all GMO soybeans and also require fewer crop inputs than other crops. This cheap food policy is why they have no feed for their cattle as they can't make money growing feed grain.

The downside with this whole program is it skews the supply and demand cycle and even though there is demand for wheat hardly anyone grows wheat.

Also they ending up flooding the world market with cheap soybeans especially during their harvest period when all the farmers are selling as they need the money.

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