Chart of the Day

From Big Picture Agriculture:

The amount of land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), at 27.1 million acres, is down by 26 percent, or 9.7 million acres in the past five years, to a 25 year low. During this same time period, corn acreage has increased by 13 million acres. Farmers are once again planting crops on marginal lands “fencerow to fencerow” to cash in on today’s high commodity prices. CRP payments haven’t risen to compete with crop returns, and the program itself is being whittled away by Congress.

I was especially caught by her use of the "fencerow to fencerow" phrase. That immediately reminds me of the last big ag land bubble in the late 70s.  The loss of the CRP acreage is just one more part of the ethanol boondoggle, and one more bit of damage inflicted on us as we wait for the bubble to burst.