Special crop conferences are fun because you get to hear detailed information about micro markets that are a big deal to micro commodities like special crops.
One commodity discussed at the Canadian Special Crops Association annual convention in Winnipeg today was a market that gave everyone a smile, but which is real money to a small segment – an incredibly small segment – of the world’s corn growing farmers: the popcorn market.
Apparently the world biggies of popcorn corn production are the United States and Argentina, with Argentina apparently being the big boy in the room. From what I could gather, popcorn farmers in Argentina can produce low cost popcorn corn that satisfies most world popcorn market needs. The U.S. has generally been pushed out of popcorn production except for the lucrative U.S. domestic market.
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However, the rotten droughty weather in Argentina has apparently left that suffering nation short of large seed popcorn, so it’ll really just have low grade, small seed popcorn to export.
Which means, an American special crops guy said, that the world’s quality popcorn corn buyers are going to have to go to the U.S. to get supply.
So this’d be a good year to have a bunch of popcorn corn in the ground. Certainly better than having run of the mill corn in the ground, the prices for which have not been very poppy.
I don’t even know if popcorn corn is a separate crop, or just nicely managed corn, the way malting barley and feed barley can come from the same variety.
I suppose I could become educated in the matter, but every time I cover edible beans sessions, I realize there are all sorts of markets for prairie-grown beans that I know nothing about , and it’d make more sense for me to learn about them than tackle the complexities of the popcorn market.
But I must admit there’s something that seems a little more fun about studying the popcorn market than light red kidney beans.
