Sunflower seed price hike. Worldwide or local?

[Ema]

I live in canada, Northern ontario, and I bought a bag of BOSS from my feed store last winter and it was 30 dollars and some change for a 50 lb sack. the second time I went to buy it it was like 32 bucks, and then this spring its nearing 36 bucks.

the hardware store also sells some farm supplies and their BOSS is about 34 bucks. then I found walmart was carrying it, an 18kg bag was 12 bucks, so I now buy it at walmart much cheaper.

I asked my feed store about the price and they told me the cost of fuel and trucking is to blame for it, Walmart can sell cheaper because they get huge truckloads several times per week and move the merchandise faster.

so I buy a sack of scratch and then mix it with a sack of boss and that is what they get in the middle of the day to keep them occupied.

Ema

 

[Cindy in PA]

With all the drought & floods this year, I really doubt BOSS will go down much. I will not be feeding wild birds at all this year & will only buy a small amount of it for the chickens.

 

[True Grit]

I think it should come down in the winter and with the generally weaker economy but hard to say if that will be reflected at the store. I'm going to try Ema's idea of mixing the boss and scratch 50/50 for the wild birds.

 

[kuntrygirl]

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I hope so. For some reason my girls HATE scratch. I don't know why.

 

[BlackBart]

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I was just told at the feed store the price will remain the same but the bags will be half the size........

I was told, floods wiping out the crops are the reason for the shortage.

 

[CarolAnn]

Makes you want to plant a field of sunflowers! Some farmers around here used to grow them but haven't seen them in years now. I loved seeing them in a.m. and p.m. when I drove the school bus.

 

[rolffamily]

I did not read all the posts, but this is my take on the sunflower skyrocketing prices.

I work for a co-op and the grain dept tells me that everybody is planting corn because the government is subsidizing the 'ethanol in gas" project, which, of course, comes from corn. So cash crop farmers are planting corn instead of soybeans, sunflower, wheat, green beens, peas, etc because they make more money (from the gov).

Therefore, any farmer who has these minority crops, such as sunflowers, wheat, etc. can pretty much ask whatever price they want. This is also why we pay more for our animal food, not to mention our own food. It's so we can put ethanol in the gas, which doesn't do anybody any good. Those same farmers, in fact, order non-ethanol gas to be delivered to their farms for their equipment.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Commodities vary. They float up and down, based on speculation along with supply and demand.

 

[Katy]

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I wish we farmers could name our own price..... doesn't work that way unless you've found a niche market for something.

I also wish we were making more money from the government.......just isn't so.

Most farmers' (us included) tractors and combines are diesel.......the gas we use in the couple of gas tractors we've got has ethanol in it.

The drought and growing conditions plus sky-rocketing input costs have more to do with the rising grain prices than anything you stated.

 

[CarolAnn]

I checked the price of BOSS at our Orscheln store yesterday and it's still $29.99 for a #50 bag.