By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Editor
There should be plenty of corn for livestock across the state this year.
Although a new report indicates Texas’ corn acreage will be down about 16 percent this year, David Gibson, executive director of Texas Corn Producers, reports the acreage is at or a little above normal.
“Even though we’re down to 2.45 [million acres] here in Texas for 2017, that’s still above the 2.3 [million acres] that was grown in 2015,” Gibson said.
Nationally, corn is forecast to be down four percent at 90 million acres. In 2015, U.S. farmers grew about 88 million acres.
If Texas farmers aren’t planting corn this year, Gibson said it may be due to the higher price of cotton.
“I think the biggest factor is the way the market is sitting. We’ve come off of a good cotton crop across a lot of the state. There’s some acres moving to cotton,” Gibson said. “I know their planting intentions were up significantly acreage-wise for the state.”
Cotton acreage in Texas is forecast to increase 22 percent this year.
Some of the farmers who have already planted corn in the Rio Grande Valley, Coastal Bend, Central Texas and further north are dealing with an old and familiar foe rooting up their fields.
“They’ve had a really good run of getting the crop in. It’s gotten up and off to a really good start. The biggest problem I’ve heard is the damage from the feral hogs,” Gibson said. “So far, in general, it sounds like we’ve gotten off to a really good start-probably a little earlier than normal.”
Another factor affecting Texas corn growers, other than wild pigs, is competition within the U.S. market.
“Weather is significant to each of our producers in Texas on their farms, but the big factor that drives corn from a weather standpoint as far as the actual market will be if they get planted on time in the Midwest,” Gibson said.
If Midwest growers have a large crop, it could add to the national corn surplus, further driving down the price of corn.
A large amount of the corn grown in Texas, especially in the southern portions of the state, is moved directly into Mexico for sale. If that market changes, Texas farmers could bear the brunt of any backlash.
“We’ve got Mexico raising questions and inquiring about pricing corn from Brazil, Argentina and some other countries,” Gibson said. “If we were to see some decrease in the amount of corn that we can sell into Mexico or any of our other countries, that could impact us in a negative way.”
Mexico began shopping for a new corn supplier earlier this year after President Donald Trump announced he’d like to reopen the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Trump has said he’d prefer to have two bilateral trade agreements with Mexico and Canada rather than a singular three-way agreement. Mexican officials made it clear they’d prefer Canada be included in whatever form NAFTA takes next.
“If Mexico were to cut back their purchases of U.S. corn by 500 million bushels, that could potentially be going into Mexico, any part of that could lead us to finding a new market or new use for adding to our surplus,” Gibson said.
Mexico is Texas’ number one or two corn export market every year.
“It certainly gives us concern if we don’t have that market,” Gibson said.
The majority of corn grown in Texas is used in livestock feed. Most of it is used within 100 miles of where it is grown.
But when people who are more than knowledgeable and able offer to remove wild pigs, the farmer wants to charge the hunter several hundred dollars for the pigs. For us, it’s not worth driving two or more hours to your farm, pay gas and maybe hotel, and then pay you to help you. Other farmers want us to spend thousands of dollars on traps and equipment but not pay the farmer to remove the wildlife, or at least not charge the trapper. The meat is no good if the animal dies in the trap before it can be retrieved. Lastly, I have actually had a farmer tell me he wanted people to remove his wildlife without being on the property.
In the meantime we could spend two weeks a month to help farmers be rid of wild pigs, but we quit for the above reasons. That’s a lot of pigs we could help you with. We just got fired of the attitudes that the far error somehow is being cheated. We were both farm family when farmers looked out for each other. That’s all we want to do. Help farmers without loosing our shirts to do it.
I’ve heard this request/complaint often over the last few weeks. Yes hunters can kill a pig here and a pig there but that has proven ineffective in significantly reducing the wild pig population. At the same time, the farmer can shoot or trap a pig here and a pig there and not risk the liability of a volunteer hunter roaming around their property day and night.
If a person really wants to hunt a pig they’ll pay for it. It’s turned into a sport hunt for most people. If shooting, trapping, and other conventional methods would eradicate pigs then a landowner would be more likely to pay for that service. Otherwise, what’s the point? It’s been proven over the decades that pigs can’t be eradicated by current methods. Why subject yourself to the liability if it’s ended in failure for decades?
The pig chasers I’ve encountered are generally looking for a place to drink beer and a good story to tell….
I am a farmer and I have been paying trappers for years to remove hogs and they have caught what would seem like a lot of hogs. We have also hunted them ourselves with some expensive equipment but in the end these methods do not solve the problem. In fact the problem is getting worse. I also keep seeing this complaint by hunters and trappers that farmers will not let them come on their property. The reality is most of the land farmed by farmers is owned by someone else who is very concerned about the liability of having a buch of people running around at night shooting who knows what direction. I have had people get mad at me for not letting them hunt but there is no way to keep them from endangering the people I already have trapping, my employees, myself, neighboring houses and cattle and roadways all of which I or my landlords may be held liable for and all for something that won’t solve the problem.
When the hog problem reaches a critical level, the land will open-up.