wearmanyhats

“What on earth are you still doing in town?” I asked a friend of mine one day last week.  “Aren’t you out driving for the beet harvest?”

“Too wet,” he said, mornfully.  It’s a loss of money for him, but worse than that, two to three million dollars worth of sugar beets sit in the field, the ground too soggy to handle the equipment to harvest.  “Bad for them,” he said, shaking his head.  “That’s not covered by insurance.  The crop isn’t ruined.  You just can’t harvest it.”

He then proceeded to tell stories of what happened a farmer and his regular crew tried to harvest.  Big rigs stuck in the field, axles broken when they got stuck and a bigger vehicle tried to pull them out.  “What a mess,” said my buddy. 

Of  course, you know what that means:  higher sugar prices in the future.

It doesn’t stop there, though.  When I stopped in at another retailer downtown, we visited about his corn stove.  “Well, the price of corn is so high now that you have to wonder if there’s any kind of savings,” he said.  “But worse than that, have you seen the fields?  I heard on the news today that only a third of the corn in Minnesota had been harvested.”

I had a hard time believing that.  Perhaps a quarter of it remained in the fields locally, too wet to take out.  But here in central Minnesota, many of the fields are emptied and the work to prepare them for spring has already started.  Still, the rest of the state, especially out west, could be in trouble.  The longer they have to wait for the ground to freeze, the longer it will take to get the corn out.  Then there is always predator damage; the longer it stands out there, the longer the deer and racoon have their fill. 

You know what that means:  higher everything in the future.  Corn is just about in every product you see on your kitchen table.  Not only is corn used in the sweetners, but I was surprised to learn that even apples have corn in them….or should I say, on them.  Wax to keep the apples shiny have corn in it.  Who would have thought such a thing?

The news on the radio farm networks said the same thing this morning. Farmers are waiting for a freeze before they can harvest. Let us hope it will be successful.

So how to protect yourself from all this inflation?  Well, consider stocking up now before next spring’s prices.  Extra sugar and other food items that can be stored will help you stave off higher food prices and provide a good economic basis should you be laid off from your job.  And buy things you like to eat.  Don’t load up on green beans if you don’t like them. 

The big thing is to be armed with knowledge that these prices will go up. That helps you manage your finances better.

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