2008 Dry Bean Meeting

On Thursday March 13^th the annual New York State Dry Bean Meeting was held in Farmington NY. A major theme was the high bean prices, growers were getting around $0.40/b for light red kidneys. This price is considerably better than the $0.18/lb seen in years previous. Prices for other types of beans such as black turtle soups and dark red kidneys were also up from previous years. From what I understood light red kidneys commanded the best price.

The prices for other commodities especially wheat, which has been in the news lately, are also up. Part of this is probably a result of acreage being planted with grain corn for ethanol. As a result for acreage of the other crops diminished.

A major problem that has resulted from the increased corn acreage is a lack of seed. Seed for cover crops like winter rye is expensive or not available. This is also the case with bean seed. Every year there has been some contention about the availability of seed, but this year might be more serious.

What happened? Well, the bean acreage has been declining, and seed growers haven’t been able to sell their seed. The seed growers noticed the rise in bean prices and dumped their excess seed onto the food market and planted fewer acres of seed last year. It doesn’t make sense to keep planting something that isn’t selling.

The verdict is still out on if there will be enough seed. I’ve heard the answer is yes, there will be enough but it will be a close. The message was order seed early.