NAICC's Look Back On 2023
By Clark Poppert
The year is coming to an end, and I am finishing my term as the NAICC president. This year as president has been an enjoyable one that was highlighted by working with a great executive board. Many significant things have happened in the past year, and I felt it would be appropriate to look back and search out the most important occurrences of the year.
The summer’s drought expanded eastward and affected much of the Corn Belt. The western regions of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and the Dakotas saw substantial improvements as did the western third of the U.S. — with only a small amount of Washington becoming drier. The southern tier of the country faced worsening drought conditions from Arizona to Alabama as Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia and North Carolina all fell into conditions warranting a severe drought notation in areas. Southeast Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri went from bad to worse, and the yields in these areas were down when compared to normal. The drought in these areas was labeled as extreme to exceptional.
Overall, weather conditions in the U.S. did improve dramatically throughout 2023.
WOTUS was the big agricultural newsmaker out of Washington, D.C., this year. In my opinion, this was a landmark ruling in favor of agriculture. I wrote about this subject in last month’s article with the main takeaway being that the Supreme Court ruled against WOTUS and stated the policy had too much overreach and power of the intermittent streams and non-navigable rivers in the U.S. This was welcome news for the American farmer and all of U.S. agriculture.
Commodity prices concern some growers as we approach the end of the year. Corn prices have fallen from close to $6/bu. to $4.75/bu. as I am writing this. Weather concerns in Brazil have some of the markets looking bullish, but that outlook changes from week to week. Soybean prices start around $13.90/bu. and are currently at $13.95/bu., though they did drop to $12/bu. over the summer. Wheat prices have continued on a steady decline throughout the course of the year. We had two nice spikes this summer around harvest, but they again declined from approximately $8/bu. to $5.75/bu. in mid-November.
It has been a pleasure to write NAICC’s column for The Scoop this past year. I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and a profitable 2024.
