Last Thursday afternoon, I walked into a Lancaster County, Pa., machinery dealer’s office and asked the boss, “How’s business?”
“Ask me a week from today,” he grinned. Being of the same conservative bent, I understood. The presidential election would be over unless lawyers tangle over “falling chads”, ghost voters, non-resident (ACORN) voters and the like.
As I drove through the country last week, I could see that most farmers were within a few days of winding up fall harvest. And as I noted here last month, corn and soybean yield expectations were shriveled by the lack of August rainfall. And the latest crop report confirmed it.
One of my farmer friends from northern Maryland told me that his wheat-beans (double-crop soybeans) were caught by frost. “I’m going to have some shot-sized green beans in the batch which no elevator wants,” he sighed.
“Find a livestock producer who can use them,” I urged. The feed value (protein content) of those off-grade beans can actually be higher.
Back to the election . . .
We’ll be glad the election is over for another reason. My implement dealer friend and I have another commonality: Our wives have been swept up and wired up after being supersaturated with all the election coverage. (They watch too much TV!)
In one sense, it won’t matter who’s elected President. Neither one knows “beans” about agriculture. Perhaps the biggest economic issue is that Barack Obama wants to hike capital gains taxes; John McCain wants to lower them. But if both houses of Congress are controlled by the Democratic party, McCain would have little chance of accomplishing that.
So, here we go!