HARRISONVILLE, Mo. — We're only a few weeks out from farmers planting new crops in Missouri.
Mike Moreland is hopeful this year is better than the last.
"Farmers are always optimistic — next year is always better," he said. “We’re just a few weeks away from planting. So we’re fine-tuning all our planters, and our tillage equipment and getting ready to put fertilizer on.”
Moreland Farms produces corn, soybeans and raises cattle.
"Commodity prices, weather, you name it, we've lived through all of it," Moreland said.
Last year, he saw record-high costs for inputs like fertilizer, fuel and feed.
“What we’re looking at anxiously is fertilizer prices," he said. "They were record-high last year. Now some of them have come down, but a lot of them are still way too high."
Besides high prices, farmers in the region also battled drought.
"Our crops suffered," Moreland said. "Our corn was off quite a bit, beans were even a little worse."
But there's good news this year.
“We are a lot better than we were last summer," Moreland said. “We’re optimistic about a few things. We do have good grain prices right now and good cattle prices right now."
Fertilizer prices are also slowly creeping down.
"We're hopeful that this year will be more normal," Moreland said. "It won't make up for all of it. You never can make up for a short crop you know. But we are thankful for the higher commodity prices."
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