My grandfather saw this sort of a price in wheat back in 1917. Not sayin’ that the world situation has any similarities with that time.
When I taught at TSJC, in the mid-eighties, the Carter years, it was a time of high interest and foreclosures on farms an ranches. There was a call for Parity – basically getting the price of wheat back as high as it was during the first World War (in 1917, wheat averaged $2.12 per bushel – a great increase over the 78 cent price in 1917). It was an interesting time – as the Junior College ag teacher, I was welcome in the ranching communities. I’m not sure that other government ag employees were received as well.
That windfall in the price of small grains (and decent crop years) is probably what allowed my grandfather to buy the place where I now live back in 1917 – picture a time when ten bushels of wheat sold for an ounce of gold! Valued in gold at today’s spot prices, that wheat would be on the close order of $450 a bushel. Value and price aren’t always the same thing.
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