Editors' Notebook

Like the old Paul Masson wine commercials from the late 1970s, we at DTN will "run no story before it's time." That can lead to some unfortunate timings, as with our series "Ag's Great Affluenza" running last week. Unfortunate in that it's a great series of articles that demand a thorough bit of reading at a time when most of you have your eyes concentrated on the field in front of you, trying to get as many acres done in a day as possible.

This package of stories looks into just how much scratch U.S. farmers and agribusinesses made in the 2006-20012 period thanks to: Increased corn demand via ethanol; China and other importers and buyers; timely tax laws that encouraged capital investment; interest rates held to historical lows by a Fed desperately trying to pry non-ag parts of the U.S. economy out of doldrums just as agriculture was rolling in good times; and not the least of which, a crop insurance program that, despite some gaps and shortcomings, is the envy of the world in terms of protecting farm survivability.

It's a series long on the making, with months of researching and interviewing, double-checking numbers and opinions, and debating angles and key points around the news office conference room.

Hopefully you'll find the time to read through it. If you've missed the original postings, the collection of these stories can be found on our DTN In-Depth site at http://www.dtn.com/….

Unlike the somewhat questionable quality of that 1970s wine, I think you'll find that allowing for the time to let these stories get the right amount of time in the old editorial barrel was worth it.

The impetus for the series came in a conversation with Executive Editor Marcia Taylor following speakers at our DTN Ag Summit in Chicago. A common theme in an otherwise unconnected series of talks was "You know, we have a great windfall, now what are we going to do with it?"

As our team of writers have chronicled, the windfall has not all been spent on vacations and fancy pickup trucks.

Operations have been expanded and land debt lowered. "Fixer-upper" fields have received tiling and other improvements that will pay off for years, decades, to come. So too will growers who invested in modern grain storage systems continue to benefit from the marketing flexibility and handling efficiency of those facilities.

The ag industry has invested the profits earned from increased sales to upgrade technologies and invest in new production facilities, most notably in domestic nitrogen fertilizer production.

Every action has its consequences. As we're chronicling this week, not all the land conversion and cropping schemes have come without a cost. While cattle and hog sectors are now poised for increasing profits, there certainly were years in which one farmer's pot of gold was another's heavy load to bear.

Still, U.S. ag is in a position never before seen by those of us old enough to remember the TV commercials with Orson Wells pitching mediocre Masson wine. Perhaps more to the point is that such stability comes at a time when other parts of the world, who themselves are anxious to become the world's ag provider, continue to deal with issues of infrastructure, political unrest, and lack of access to capital.

It's a global economy, and U.S. agriculture will always be subject to circumstances beyond our control. At least for the near future, though, we'd offer that U.S. ag is in a better position to weather those circumstances.

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